Chapter 2
The Lion and the Lamb ~ continued from Chapter 2 | Their First Kiss
Obed climbed the hills to the threshing floor; he worried about the rains setting in and ruining the crop, but the workers were experienced and he could see that a comfortable winter with food in everyone’s belly was upon them.
He also understood that King Saul and his men would pass by and take provisions that would deplete the storehouses. Jesse and Obed’s seven grandsons would join Saul against the Philistines as a fighting unit and the soil would turn red with blood. War was coming.
After the barley was brought to the threshing floor the turner began his work. He arranged the stalks in the center of the floor and the donkey pulled the threshing board over them.
“Good,” Iram smiled. He was pleased to see the grain neatly stacked and waiting to be stored.
“Ha,” cried the turner as he forced the donkey over the floor. He would stop the beast and then turn over the barley so that both sides were cut.
The turner took off his hat and wiped his brow with his farmer’s wool tunic.
“A goodly crop this one.” He pointed to the heavy grain that lay in the hot sun, the flies buzzing about in the heat.
Iram looked watchfully over the crop.
“Enough to feed us for the winter.”
“And more.”
The turner began again to push the donkey across the floor, slashing and cutting the barley stalks.
“Heehaw, Heehaw,” the donkey brayed as the threshing board scraped the floor.
Iram sneezed as the thick air flew into his nostrils.
The cut stalks were set in the sun to dry before the winnowing and the villagers took pitchforks and picked up the barley husks to point them upward.
Hannah and the other women raised the cut stalks high into the air and walked so the wind would loosen the chaff and the heavy grain would fall to the stone floor. The grain would then be placed in great wicker baskets and taken to the storehouses.
Obed brought David and Shimea and they all picked up the grain and let the chaff blow in the wind. He looked fondly at his grandsons, lifted his pitchfork high and felt his soul fly free. He saw his past behavior good and bad tossed to the wind, the bad or impatient side of him swept away and what was left dropped on the stone floor.
“You see how far we can fly,” Obed whispered to David as the chaff disappeared on the wind.
David watched the chaff from the barley blow over the stone fields and valleys and wondered how far he might travel from this stone threshing floor. The threshing floor was nothing more than a huge gulch dug out of the hillside by the wind and laid flat by the villagers but in that instant he saw more.
He saw beyond the heat of the day and the harsh world his family lived in for it was here on this Bethlehem threshing floor that he witnessed his past and his future. With his pitchfork high his view was far and wide and he felt a great depth of passion. He ran wildly and continued raising his pitchfork while the others looked on. He had been in the sun too long.
“I see!” he yelled out. “I see!”
Obed caught him by the sleeve.
“David, David,” he said gently. “Calm yourself.” Obed had seen that far-off look in his daughter’s eyes.
“Come.” He cradled the nine-year-old in his arm. “Down to your mother.”
Continue reading… Chapter 2 | The Lion
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