Wild or Tame?
“Make yourself an ark of gopher wood. Make rooms in the ark, and cover it inside and out with pitch. This is how you are to make it; the length of the ark 300 cubits; its breadth 50 cubits; and its height 30 cubits. Make a roof for the ark and finish it to a cubit above, and set the door of the ark in its side. Make it with lower, second and third decks.”
Gen. 6:14
Hurrying toward the ark with Japheth, Shem worked out a plan for corralling the bears as well as caging the lions he’d seen with Paseah. The problem was that more than two men would be necessary to control the animals. Shem was still trying to figure out how they’d manage without Ham when running footsteps and a bobbing torch sped toward them from the direction of the house. Moments later Ham stopped breathlessly beside them. “Eudocea’s awake and Mother thinks she’ll be fine!”
Instant relief washed over Shem. Partly because of the news about Eudocea, but also relief at having Ham back. The latter surprised him because he realized he and Ham may actually be friends. Despite all their differences.
“Why aren’t you with her?” Japheth demanded.
Ham had come to help and Japheth wanted to send him away! Shem’s grimace was lost in the darkness.
“She’s not ready yet.” Through the black night, Ham’s words radiated happiness laced with apprehension. Shem understood. Though a measure of uncertainty remained, Ham had hope.
They continued to the ark with Ham bouncing beside his brothers like a kangaroo who’d munched sugar beets. “Got a little too much energy?” Shem asked.
“Yeah! I need something strenuous to work it off.” Ham laughed and punched Shem’s shoulder.
At the bottom of the ramp, the younger brothers fell into line behind Shem even though the ramp spanned wide enough for elephants to walk side by side. It was a habit formed in childhood and carried out subconsciously by the brothers. In the same way, they all assumed that Shem would come up with a plan for getting the animals into the appropriate stalls.
So far Shem had nothing. He’d worked with cows and camels and could shear a sheep in his sleep, but he had no experience with wild animals.
Especially dangerous ones.
How could he control the uncontrollable? His palms were beginning to sweat.
“Got any idea how to herd lions?”
Japheth groaned. “Please tell me you’re joking. I know nothing about lions, but I’m relatively certain you can’t herd them.”
“We’ll come up with something,” Shem assured him.
“You better. I just work the fields.”
“I have a feeling you’re going to be saying, ‘I’m just a wild animal handler’ after tonight.” Ham laughed.
Japheth moaned again. “I don’t care how excited you are about your wife. That goofy cheerfulness is gonna wear me raw.”
Shem smiled.
Inside the ark, all the wall torches made it easier to see one another, but Shem still puzzled over how he would get the animals to rooms and cages where he could safely lock them up. Warily on the lookout for lions and bears, the men closed doors as they moved down corridors. Only Shem had thought to shut and lock rooms as he checked for Paseah earlier in the day. All the doors left open by Japheth and Ham left literally hundreds of places to check.
Was it really still the same day? Wow. A fly buzzed past his face and he absently swatted at it.
“Careful about killing flies in here,” Japheth warned. “The ones by the house are okay, but aboard the ark, well . . .
“Well, what?”
“You don’t want to exterminate an entire species do you?”
Shem chuckled, then caught a glimpse of his brother’s face. “You’re not kidding.”
“We’re responsible to keep every creature aboard the ark alive.”
“A fly?” Shem poked his torch into a doorway and scanned a room stacked with wooden crates before closing the door and barring it. “You really think God cares about one pesky fly?” He wished they could skip checking all the hundreds of rooms on this floor.
“I hadn’t thought much about flies either until Father said something yesterday. He said God loves even flies.”
“Oh, come on,” Ham derided him.
“A fly!” Shem repeated, shocked to find himself agreeing with Ham. “Somehow I doubt that.”
“Father said God loves every detail of his creation.”
Ham hooted. “If he cares so much about his creatures why would he be planning to destroy everyone and everything on earth?” As soon as he spoke the words, he clamped a hand over his mouth.
Still holding onto the door-bar, Shem gawked open-mouthed at his brother. Ham had accused God. Out loud! Though Shem didn’t think saying bad things rated any higher or lower on the wickedness scale than thinking them, Ham’s words indicting God were blasphemy. Paralyzing fear gripped Shem. “God help us.” He released the bar and the slat thudded into place across the door.
“God heard you say he doesn’t love his creation!” Japheth muttered through white lips.
“Don’t tell me you’ve never thought that.” Ham laughed nervously, though Shem didn’t find his laughter appropriate. An argument between the two younger brothers ensued. Japheth insisted Ham needed to confess and repent. Ham said God would forgive him. Japheth said Ham didn’t deserve forgiveness. He’s just fortunate God is so gracious and loving that he will forgive Ham if he asks.
Lost in his own thoughts, Shem led them toward the family quarters intending to pick up whips for managing the lions and bears before they went any further. The disagreement between his siblings nattered in the background like the cacophony of Spring Peepers in a swamp. Shem couldn’t stop mulling over Ham’s statement. “Don’t tell me you’ve never thought that.”
Had Shem ever believed God didn’t care about him, especially when God failed to provide a wife? Probably. Had he ever thought of God as uncaring because he intended to destroy the world? Yes. Shem didn’t know if he actually believed that, but he had to admit the thought had flashed through his mind a few times. And stayed for awhile.
The words sounded awful when Ham spoke them, but Shem was guilty too. While believing human mothers always loved their children – their creations -- Shem had questioned whether God loved his creation. Shem had unintentionally placed God on a lower moral level than the human mothers he created. By thinking God cared nothing for his own creation, Shem had effectively labeled God as cruel.
“Forgive me, Lord,” Shem prayed. “I was wrong.”
The argument behind abruptly ceased. “What?” Ham asked.
“Nothing,” Shem replied.
“Not nothing.” Japheth wouldn’t let it go. “You said something.”
Shem glanced into a room packed with dried venison then slammed the door. “Just keep doing your job. You missed that room over there.”
“I think you said something about being wrong.” Ham’s grin exposed his relief at shifting the focus from his flaws to his brother’s.
Finding nothing on the top level, Shem led his brothers through one of the passages that cut perpendicular across the ark. They passed an elevator before descending one of the flights of stairs to the second deck. Steepest of the ark’s stairways, this one was little more than a ladder.
“I was just thinking.” Shem smiled ruefully as the trio began lighting wall torches on the middle level so nothing could sneak up on them, “that I don’t have to know everything about God’s plan. Not even his plan for me. All I need to know is that he has a plan and he’s good and he’ll work everything out for the best. That’s all.”
Japheth nodded approval.
“Never expected you to turn into Preachy-Japheth-Number-Two,” Ham said.
Japheth snorted in disgust.
Shem opened the door to one of the numerous small storerooms located next to the elevators used for lowering food from storage rooms on the top floor to animals on the bottom decks. “Think you can find whips?”
Japheth went inside and pushed aside a small wheeled wagon used to haul animal-feed before fumbling through a jumble of supplies in a dark corner of the room. After a few moments, he triumphantly lifted three short-handled whips above his head. Intricately braided leather engulfed each handle, extending into a long lash with a single cubit-long leather popper at the end.
Ham accepted a whip from his brother and stepped into the hallway where there was more space. He flicked his wrist and arm. A loud crack sounded from the single length of leather at the end, eliciting a broad grin from Ham. “Any lions or bears catching that boom will march obediently into cages.”
“I hope so.” Shem said. “We might not live through this if they don’t.”
© Jeannie St. John Taylor
Because this chapter is short, I'll post another by Wednesday.
Because this chapter is short, I'll post another by Wednesday.
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