HEARTLIGHT(R) Magazine: Special Feature: A Tale of Two Grasshoppers

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Surely my father would never turn back to slavery; surely he would look into the sordid faces of these men and curse them. My boyish will to conquer was inflamed. I wanted to shout down these cowards, to drive them from our tent, to flay them alive with the flashing blades of my indignation.
They waited for my father’s reply. From behind him, I saw his shoulders sag. Finally, I saw his head nod silently in agreement…
I stared at his back in wordless disbelief. In a sudden rush of horror, I felt hatred for my father. I clenched my jaw against the wail of anguish clawing at the back of my throat, and slipped out of the tent into the solitude of darkness.
That night was a bad one for me. Always before, the strong backs of my parents had fended the desiccating winds of uncertainty from striking me with their full force. Until now, I never doubted their ability to clear the path for me, to point me in the right way. But with his shrug of defeat, the shelter of my father was forever denied me. I now faced alone a perilous, ambiguous future. I raged within at my father for his inability to see what was—to my child’s eyes—perfectly clear.
I wandered the camp like a lost soul. At every doorway, in every shadow, I overheard despairing sighs, conspiratorial whispers. I tasted a wrongness in the mood of our people, a foul stench polluting the whole camp. For the first time in my short life, I was truly alone. I did not have words for the crosscurrents in my breast, and I have not learned them since. A lad of only some twelve summers, I fought with my own angel that night.
At dawn I squatted listlessly on my heels in our tent door, idly tossing pebbles at a clump of weeds a few paces away. I felt my father’s eyes on me, but I did not look at him or acknowledge his presence. Sensing my bitterness, perhaps, he squatted before me. I could no longer decently ignore him. Reluctantly, I raised my eyes to his.
“If we go in, it will mean bloodshed and horror.” He stopped, waiting for my reply. I kept quiet, and looked away.
“Fathers will be murdered, mothers and children taken as slaves. It is your welfare I consider. You must understand! Don’t you see?”
A long silence ached between us, until I spoke. “But Caleb and Joshua—”
“Hah, Caleb and Joshua! Are they the only men sent to spy out the land? Do you believe it is only a fable that giants live there? Yours is a world of imaginary battles and fanciful games, but it is I who must draw the sword against the armies of Canaan. When the Philistines come against us with war chariots, do you suppose Joshua and Caleb can slay them with clever words? No, it’s time you learned to face reality, my son. It’s time you looked at the world through a man’s eyes, instead of a child’s.”
I felt a scalding tide rising in my chest. I leapt to my feet and raced madly away, leaving my father crouched in the doorway, staring after.
Toward mid-morning I heard a commotion. Angry voices erupted in the direction of the cliffs. I raced among the tents of the Levitical compound toward the meeting place and the dwellings of Moses and Aaron.
As I drew near, a crowd of shouting men boiled out into the clearing. They bore down on the leader’s tent, pushing Caleb and Joshua in their midst. Hearing the noise, Moses appeared at his doorway, followed by his brother. Both men looked drawn and tired, and I knew they, too, had not slept.
The mob swelled to the doorway, and like waves casting driftwood ashore, pressed Joshua and Caleb before them.
“We will have none of the suicidal ravings of these two!” someone shouted.
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