As he thought these things he was aware of the absurdity. At this crisis of his life, what did the flock matter? If the flock were stolen or ravaged, he’d be out of reach of any blame or chiding. Still, even now, he reckoned the risk to the flock carefully, because at heart he was still the good owner shepherd, not a hireling, like Ibri or Arad. And when, dead to this world, he woke in the next—if there was another, and faced the judgement of God, he hoped that it would be taken into reckoning that though as a man, as father and husband, he was a failure, as a shepherd he had been reliable.
So he looked over the flock before he lay down. All was well.
The fire was bright, and beside it the two young men were still engrossed in their game.
He couldn’t, in the traditional manner, turn his face to the wall, but he turned it towards the rock, under whose overhanging edge they had made their little camping place. And as he lay down he thought with a profound feeling of relief that now he had done with it all, done with the grief and the toil, the searing doubts, the consequent self-recrimination. As he composed himself for sleep, faith came flooding back; he had prayed and he believed that this prayer would be answered. So he began to sink down into darkness and softness and not-knowing as gently as he had done in the happy days. His last thought was that he had not approached sleep by such a. pleasant path since he had shared a night watch with Nathan.. ..
Shortly before midnight he woke, with the old familiar jolt. Something wrong? He raised his head and listened and, as usual, knew that with the flock all was well, with him all was wrong. The feeling of loss and disaster fell upon him again. Not dead. Alive and wide awake, back with his misery.
He stood up and looked around him. The snow had ceased; the sky had cleared and overhead the stars were brilliant. Arad and Ibri were sound asleep beside the fire which had died down to a pinkish glow under a shroud of ash. The sheep were sleeping too, lying close like the boulders in a dry riverbed. It was all as usual. He thought—God has failed me again; and this time felt no self reproach. It was simple truth. God had failed him all along. He’d kept the Law, done his duty, paid his dues, made his prayers, and never, until tonight, asked a favour for himself. On Nathan’s behalf he had prayed for an acquittal, then for swift death; both denied.
He thought, in plain peasant fashion, that if you knocked on the door of a human friend, once and again and again, and had no answer, you’d conclude that he was not there, or that he was, for some reason, no longer.your friend. Did not the same apply to God?
The wind blew coldly and he stood there between the great empty space
of earth and the great empty space of heaven,between a vast flock of senseless sheep and a vast flock of unheeding stars and knew the ultimate loneliness. He faced-for the first time without recoil or protest—the fact that Nathan had gone for ever, the strong merry, bright-eyed boy who had made music and cracked jokes and loved his food was now just a dead thing, rotting; what he had been had vanished into darkness.
And I will follow, Josodad thought. I will make an end. He knew just how to do it. His knife was sharp; one firm slash across his left wrist would suffice.
Even now, in this moment of no faith, of dead belief, his mind reverted, from habit, to the Law by which he had lived all his life. Thou shall not kill. That was plain enough and any believer in the Law would understand that suicide as well as murder was forbidden. Yet it was never held against Saul that he had thrown himself on his sword after his defeat at Gilboa. His suicide, indeed, had inspired one of the most beautiful of David’s songs. But Saul had long before lost touch with God. Like me, Josodad thought. He drew his knife and saw the starlight sparkle on the clean bright blade.
Then he paused. He had lost touch with God, but not with man, and not with sheep. Arad and Ibri didn’t like him, he knew that; to his face they were sullen and suspicious, behind his back they laughed at him and called him Old Tup; but it would spoil their breakfast if they woke and found him here by the dead fire, lying in his blood. And the sheep would be upset, too. All animals were sensitive to blood; carnivores liked, were excited by the smell of it; sheep, oxen, horses abhorred it. So he must go away to do what he had to do.
He began to scramble, making as little noise as possible over the sheltering rocks. At the top he walked a hundred paces and then looked around for some hidden niche in the broken ground where he could lie. The boys would wake in the morning and look over the flock in their casual fashion, have their breakfast, remark upon his absence, and wait. Eventually one of them would report to Ezra and a search would be organised. Maybe by that time the kites would have picked his bones clean. His death would cause nobody any bother, or any grief.
Up here the stars seemed even brighter and there was one, very large, very golden, hanging low in the sky, a star which he had never noticed before in his sleepless nights. Once he had thought of the stars, as of the sun and the moon, that they were all part of the miracle of creation, the result of God’s order, Let there be light! But tonight the courts of heaven were untenanted, and the throne was empty.
Searching for what was to be his last bed he turned his eyes from the sky to the ground and was startled to see his own shadow very black and sharply defined, stretching ahead of him. No amount of starlight could cast such a shadow. He turned and saw that behind him the sky was luminous, filled with light that was not of the moon or the stars, light without origin or focus, visibly brightening. It was, he thought, as though the sky were opening.
A fearful terror came upon him, terror so complete that he could not move, or breathe, or even tremble though the marrow of his bones vibrated. The light grew dazzling, and shifted, and took shape. Then suddenly, brighter than the light, more beautiful than anything ever seen or imagined, there was the angel, leaning down along the shafts of radiance and speaking with a golden voice.
The angel said, “Fear not; for behold I bring you tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David, a Saviour which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; ye shall find the babe, wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.”
The Saviour. The Messiah. Something in Josodad’s mind shouldered fear aside. He said in a loud, almost angry voice, “Didn’t I tell him so? Didn’t I say that in His own time, in His own way, God would deliver His people. He had only to wait. The waste of it!”
He had felt that his misery was absolute, that nothing could add to it.
But he had been wrong. There was this extra bitterness to come.
“Too late,” he said.
“This is too late for Nathan who is dead, and too late for me, who have denied my God.”
Then he saw that the angel was not alone. Around him there was a
multitude, a great host, all with bright, beautiful faces.But of the host Josodad had eyes only for one familiar, beloved face; and in the chorus of voices singing, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward men’, he heard only the voice of his own son.
They vanished and he was alone in the starlight. He stood there knowing that Nathan was not a dead thing in the ground, but alive, recognisable and happy, part of some inconceivable glory. He was filled with joy, and mingling with the joy was remorse because he had allowed grief to sour him, to estrange him from his family, from his fellow men, from life itself. All those years wasted in grief and bitterness, with Nathan, young and beautiful, safe in the hands of God all the time. He said aloud, “O God, maker of the Universe, forgive me. How could I know?” The answer came from his own mind: no man could know, but a man should have faith.