Jeremiah's Last Call

By Cliff Keller

It is 580 BC. Jerusalem is a ruin and Judah’s last king, Zedekiah, is blind and bound in chains in Babylon. The prophet Jeremiah is a prisoner of his own countrymen at Tahpanhes, an abandoned fortress on Egypt's eastern frontier. Jeremiah’s fellow-captives include his friend and scribe, Baruch ben Neriah and King Zedekiah’s orphaned daughters. While at Tahpanhes, Jeremiah receives a last prophecy that includes an assignment. The word of the Lord came to Jeremiah saying...
“Take some large stones in your hands and hide them in the mortar in the brick terrace which is at the entrance of Pharaoh’s palace in Tahpanhes, in the sight of some of the Jews. (Jer 43:8-9)
Evidence exists that Jeremiah, though a very old man with no resources, somehow accomplished that task. Excavations conducted in 1886 by Flinders Petrie, an English Egyptologist, unearthed a platform of brickwork at a site in Eastern Egypt which Petrie identified as ancient Tahpanhes.
The location of Petrie’s find was known to the locals as Qasr Bint al-Yahudi, the “Castle of the Jew’s Daughter,” an amazing bit of linguistic evidence supporting Petrie’s claim to have found Jeremiah’s last known home, as we know from the biblical record that “King Zedekiah's daughters” were among the remnant taken forcibly to Tahpanhes.
In Jeremiah’s Last Call, after receiving the charge to take large stones in hand, Jeremiah persuades Baruch ben Neriah to enlist help then venture into the Nile delta to find suitable stones for the ordained project.
But the nearest rock quarry is an ancient, abandoned mound known as Red Hill, so-called after the characteristic color of the sandstone once mined there, which lay some 60 miles southwest of Tahpanhes near Egypt’s ancient capital of Memphis and the site of modern Cairo.
Egypt’s famed general Amasis, future Pharaoh Amasis II, heads to Tahpanhes bent on destroying it. How will Baruch deliver the stones to his prophet and thus fulfill his mission?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cliff Keller
• Release date: Nov 7, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005853693

Cliff Keller

Cliff Keller was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. After multiple migrations between Florida and Wisconsin, Cliff attended Florida State University to pursue a degree in Engineering Science, paying his way by working as an engineering coop student for NASA at Cape Canaveral. Somehow aware of Cliff's progress, President Richard Nixon designed to send Cliff to the war in Vietnam by ending the educational draft deferment. By graduating, then receiving an occupational deferment while working for then defense contractor, Texas Instruments, in Dallas, Cliff avoided conscription and bested the president, who soon afterward became distracted by the Watergate scandal and lost interest in Cliff’s status.After eight years in Dallas (and earning a Master's Degree in Electrical Engineering from Southern Methodist University), Cliff spent the next 18 years in Florida in the construction business before selling the company to devote more time to writing.Cliff and his wife, Marcia, now live in Jerusalem, Israel, having made Aliyah in 2011, where they are slowly improving at speaking Hebrew and loving their time in the land.

Book preview

Introduction

About six years after Jerusalem fell and sovereign Judah no longer existed, we learn from the 43rd chapter of the Book of Jeremiah that Jeremiah, his scribe Baruch ben Neriah, the daughters of former king Zedekiah and a small remnant of Jews who had survived Babylon’s 18-month onslaught were taken to Egypt against their will by one of their own.

While in Egypt, Jeremiah received a final prophecy, part of which commanded him to build a stone pavilion for the king of Babylon’s use during a future invasion of Egypt. Jeremiah was an old man without means at the time and a virtual prisoner. To human eyes, his assignment seemed impossible.

Jeremiah’s Last Call

"For I know the plans that I have in mind for you, declares Adonai, plans for peace and not calamity, to give you a future and a hope…"

(Jer 29:11)

Prologue

On the day Jerusalem fell to Babylon, the prophet Jeremiah’s lifelong scribe Baruch ben Neriah could not speak nor easily swallow, so parched was he after eighteen months of drought and siege. But, still able to hear, Baruch learned that, after Babylon’s brutal victory over Judah, her king had issued these orders to the captain of his guard…

Take Jeremiah and look after him. Do nothing harmful to him, but rather deal with him exactly as he tells you.

…thus Nebuchadnezzar and pagan Babylon had better-honored Israel’s mighty prophet than had the prophet’s own kin. Yet Jeremiah chose to remain with his people as Babylon’s prisoner.

Years later, while in Egypt, Baruch tended to his mentor’s care, supposing their work to be done. But God had not yet finished with his servant.

I. The Compound

1. The castle of the Jew’s daughter

Just before dawn each day, not far from what was once the land of Goshen, Baruch ben Neriah, the prophet Jeremiah’s lifelong friend and trusted scribe, would often waken sighing. When one is held captive few things change, yet Baruch never failed to look past his problems and whisper praises to the Lord. I thank you, living and eternal King, he began each day with deep conviction, though he was an exile with no country and, most would say, no hope.

Uninclined to tiptoe past his several snoring jailers in the dark, Baruch would splash his face with water, roll out a barracks window then cross a courtyard to a bench beside a wall. Through cracks in the old wall’s stone, as the light grew bit by bit, he would watch gulls dart above a fogbound marsh and feed on clouds of insects.

And the clarity of their struggle seemed to comfort him.

One such morning, with the Egyptian sun a pale orange disk and the air having turned quite cold, Baruch found his prophet standing peacefully beside him. Take your cart and mule out to the road, Jeremiah said, never bothering to greet him, then head west.

When Baruch began to blink, confused, Jeremiah hooked his arm then led him past a sleeping guard and out their prison’s gate. That way, he said, pointing, but go past where you now fetch our salt and turn south to find a rock pit!

This had not been their first unclear exchange. Knowing better than to ask more questions, Baruch waited patiently and the prophet soon said more. Harvest several large, smooth stones from the quarry you shall surely find, he said, and bring them back to me.

Baruch nodded that he understood and Jeremiah smiled (though the corners of the prophet’s mouth bent down sadly, with resolve, not up, with satisfaction). I’ll need big, cut rocks, he added, and I’ll need them soon. Best start now if you hope to return before dark.

*

Prophets of God are not practical men nor are they the sort with whom men argue, so Baruch gently urged his mentor to explain himself more clearly. I’m to go far from here, Baruch began, in the flimsy cart upon which we came?

Perhaps 70 miles past where you have gone before, Jeremiah nodded.

With only my aging mule to pull it?

The prophet narrowed his eyes, thinking.

And the large rocks that you require… Baruch began, but Jeremiah interrupted.

The Lord demands them, he said, not I.

And what do you suppose one rock might weigh?

Jeremiah answered with what had become by then a rote recital, "Take some large stones in your hand, he spoke from memory, and hide them in the mortar in the brick terrace which is at the entrance of Pharaoh’s palace in Tahpanhes, in the sight of some of the Jews." He paused to point back through the gate. Is this not Tahpanhes? he asked. "Is it not the place the locals now call Qasr Bint al-Yehudi, the Castle of the Jew’s daughter, where King Zedekiah’s three orphaned girls now are forced to sleep?"

So, you desire that I, alone, Baruch said, with my old cart and balking mule, travel an uncertain distance to an unknown place then retrieve a load of unseen stones? And I am to complete this chore today?

It is hard to imagine that a withered man, raked with scars and bent by decades of service to a thankless population, could suddenly glow with delight but, after further thought, the prophet did so. Agreed, then, he said, you will need assistance. Take some men with you.

None from here, surely, Baruch said, but I may find a few willing souls at Sena.

Then do it, said Jeremiah, for the work must soon be done.

After almost forty years in Jeremiah’s service, Baruch felt comfortable enough, just then, to set his hands upon the prophet’s shoulders and pat gently. And what will you make of the stones? he asked.

I’ll lay them side by side in the sand here, exactly in the manner required by the Lord.

Even now, Baruch sighed, though Judah is no more, you hear him?

Even now, the prophet said, he speaks.

Then I shall find a way to do as you’ve asked but, please, sir, understand. It shall likely take some time.

Then you best get started, Jeremiah said.

Then he stepped away and left Baruch alone and nodding on the highway.

2. Around the bend of the Western Sea

Long before the day on which Jeremiah asked Baruch to gather stones, Yohanan ben Kareah, a former captain in sovereign Judah’s army, had stooped to serve his conqueror, Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon. Yohanan and his troops, who had all somehow remained unscarred throughout a long and brutal war, agreed to protect Judah’s few survivors at Mizpah, a lonely hilltop fortress near Jerusalem. Soon other Jews who had run for their lives to Moab, Edom and other far places also returned to live there.

Nebuchadnezzar appointed a Judean named Gedaliah to be their governor, propped up by traitorous Yohanan and a small Babylonian guard. "Do not be afraid of serving the Chaldeans, Gedaliah had urged his people. Stay in the land and serve Babylon’s king that it may go well with you." But after nearly six years passed, another Jew named Ishmael, revolting with ten henchmen, murdered Gedaliah and many Babylonians as well.

Fearing Babylon’s vengeance, Yohanan and his men fled Mizpah, forcing the remnant to come with them. After they had run south for quite a while, they stopped to rest at a place called Geruth Chimham, where the remnant learned that Yohanan planned to abandon Judah forever and live in Egypt.

Most among them were eager to leave but a handful of others objected. When unable to agree among themselves, Yohanan grudgingly, and insincerely, allowed them to seek counsel from the Lord. Baruch recorded their anxious plea to their prophet in a scroll. "Please let our petition come before you, they asked Jeremiah, …and pray for us to the Lord your God, that is for all this remnant…that the Lord your God may tell us the way…the thing that we should do."

After ten days at prayer, Jeremiah answered…

Thus says the Lord the God of Israel…If you will indeed stay in this land, then I will build you up and not tear you down, and I will plant you and not uproot you for I will relent concerning the calamity that I have inflicted on you. Do not be afraid of the king of Babylon… Do not be afraid of him, declares the Lord, for I am with you to save you and deliver you from his hand.

It was the seventh month, pleasant weather, an ordinary day by any measure, but Baruch had never felt such joy upon hearing a revelation. Praise God! he shouted to his countrymen. The Lord remains with us, by his mercies we are saved.

Neither Yohanan nor his officers spoke during the assembly but had mounted their horses instead. We all know Nebuchadnezzar, the captain told them afterward. If we stay here, we shall die.

Was your seeking a word from the Lord then a mockery? Baruch challenged. Has God himself not just spoken to us otherwise?

All eyes turned toward Jeremiah. The Lord has made it plain, he said, sighing, weary and amazed by their faithlessness. If you abandon your homeland and run you shall all surely die by sword, by famine and pestilence.

Yohanan turned his horse until he no longer faced the prophet. Form ranks, he ordered his troops, we are leaving. And even those few Jews at Geruth Chimham who trusted God and Jeremiah were forced to come along.

*

They fled 200 miles around the bend of the Great Western Sea. At Tahpanhes, an abandoned ruin on Egypt’s eastern frontier, they stopped to occupy a rotting barracks encircled by an outer wall and built upon a man-made mound surrounded on three sides by shallow water.

Among the old fort’s few benefits were its proximity to the seacoast and an onshore breeze that sometimes, but not always, kept away the wetland’s hordes of noxious bugs.

Not far north lay a freshwater lake that teemed with fish, and there were ancient, mud-brick basins nearby from which, when it rained enough or the distant Nile flooded, they collected drinking water.

Wholly despised by the others, Yohanan’s troops kept to themselves. The other men in camp were mostly bent and old. The women were all widows, some young, most gray, all heartbroken, who earned their keep by cooking, mending, cleaning and keeping order for the men.

*

The moment they arrived, Yohanan assigned quarters to each man, woman and soldier within the compound’s musty barracks. He set tasks, posted schedules and attempted to oversee all that was done, but the remnant largely ignored him (for it is difficult to control those who, in their minds, have all but died).

Jeremiah and Baruch especially annoyed the captain. The prophet ate, slept and spoke out as he pleased. Baruch, without asking permission, staked claim to a room in an outbuilding in which he stored the prophet’s scrolls; words from the Lord he had refused to leave behind in Judah despite Yohanan’s objections.

Baruch had also angered the captain by carrying with him in his little, mule-drawn wagon, rolls of clean papyrus upon which he planned to write again. And it proved good that he had done so. Not long after they arrived at Tahpanhes, the remnant heard from their prophet’s lips a command that would change their lives.

Take some large stones in your hand…

But none who heard those words, except perhaps the man who spoke them, understood clearly what they meant, and months passed before Jeremiah set out to obey them.

3. Back from where?

Later that morning Baruch found Efrat, Zedekiah’s middle daughter, at work in the sandy patch she liked to call her garden. I spotted you two outside the gate this morning, she said when Baruch joined her on the hopeless patch in which she labored daily beside her quarters, the building everyone had come to call the big house. What did the prophet ask you to do?

Baruch tried to change the subject. Jeremiah says you will never grow close to me, he said, unable not to stare at her bare knees and freckled neck while she pulled weeds at his feet and never looked up, because you once were royalty.

You flatter yourself, Efrat said. Much better reasons explain my indifference. But you have ignored my question. Why was the prophet in your ear so early this morning?

Baruch allowed a spark of anger to pass by stooping to pull up a radish.

Don’t, Efrat objected. They’re not ready.

But Baruch yanked the bulb from the dirt and stuffed it into his mouth, grit and all. I think you’ll agree, he said, trying hard not to frown with disgust while chewing, these are tasty.

Efrat hopped up and snatched away the radish’s leafy top before Baruch could eat that too. Stubborn child, she muttered, though she was more than twenty years his junior. It’s no wonder you never married.

He asked me to go toward the river, Baruch finally found the courage to say, past where I get our salt, and to find and bring back several stones.

Efrat blinked at him, confused.

You have heard the prophecy, Baruch said. The prophet believes there’s a quarry somewhere south of here. He’ll take the stones I bring back and arrange them in the compound.

And you agreed to do it?

Consider for whom he speaks.

But how will you find your way? she asked, suddenly turned pitiful.

Baruch smiled, as he always did when Efrat betrayed affection. I’ll first hire help at Sena.

So, before starting toward the river, you plan to head the other way?

Baruch nodded.

Sena is also called Per Amun, is it not? Efrat asked. The house of the Egyptian’s sun god. And in that miserable pagan place you hope to find and hire solid men.

Our prophet has need for stones, Baruch said.

He’s your prophet, not mine, Efrat said, and if you truly cared for me you would not take on such risk.

It’s a half-day’s ride when my mule feels fit, Baruch said. And I suppose there’s little more danger at Sena than we face here, in this forsaken place.

Efrat turned and marched away then stopped suddenly and stepped back. How long will it take you? she asked.

A day or two to enlist help…

We’ll pray, then, she interrupted, that you’ll hire men who want only to beat and rob you. none inclined to slit your throat.

… and it will take time to find and ford the Nile.

You admit it, then, Efrat said. You do not even know the way.

West then south, Baruch said, I need no more. The details are in God’s hands. I will find a quarry because he has ordained it.

Efrat’s lips began to quiver and, though she frowned hard to prevent it, her eyes welled up with tears. What will I do, she whispered, when you are so far away?

In a bit of madness, Baruch took her in his arms and kissed her, first time ever.

You taste like radish, she said, having neither joined in nor resisted his affection. She glanced about to be certain no one had seen them then completed the insult by wiping her lips with her sleeve. Enough, she whispered, about to turn away again, but she instead moved closer and patted his chest. Do you still have it? she asked.

Baruch nodded then pulled up a small, polished stone from beneath his tunic, a gem from Judah’s Timnah Valley, pale green and blue like the sea, attached to a delicate metal chain he wore around his neck.

This, as you know, was my mother’s, Efrat said, turning the small stone in her hand. While you carry it, you are with me.

I’m with you now, Efrat, Baruch said, reminding you of radishes.

Don’t pout at me, but be patient, Efrat said. Doing so only proves that you do not understand me.

But Baruch understood too well. Efrat was two women, one loving, one cold, both morbidly sad. In the last ten years, while Efrat grew from awkward child to graceful adult, all her friends and most of her family had been murdered, raped or starved to death by Babylon. Six years before that morning, she learned that her father, Judah’s last king, had abandoned her, her sisters and Jerusalem, dark of night, like the coward that he was. He and those who had run with him were captured near Jericho then taken to Riblah, where Babylon’s Nebuchadnezzar murdered Efrat’s brothers while Zedekiah watched. Then he plucked out the king’s eyes.

*

Baruch began toward Sena that morning. A stout soldier named Eitan stood in the gate and blocked his path. Where do you suppose you are going? Eitan growled, pounding the shaft of his spear in the sand at his feet.

By what authority do you ask? Baruch said.

I have orders, of course. I should think that would be plain.

From whom? Baruch asked. Answer quickly.

Unimpressed by Baruch’s aggression, Eitan removed his helmet and began to massage an ugly ridge of bone that began above one half-closed eye and ran to the crown of his head. Why, Yohanan, of course, he said. Before he and the others went raiding.

Raiding?

I’ve assumed so, Eitan said. But my captain, as a captain, need not confide in me.

He is your master, you say?

"My superior, Eitan corrected. And properly so, now that Gedaliah has died."

Gedaliah did not die. He was murdered.

Not upon my watch, Eitan said, and what’s this to do with anything?

Baruch motioned the soldier closer. Is it your claim, he began in a low voice as Eitan stepped forward, that Yohanan told you to question me, specifically, about whatever I may do?

No, not specifically.

Well then, there’s your answer, Baruch said. Quickly, out of my way.

Though hesitant and frowning, Eitan obliged. Baruch clicked his tongue. His mule set the wagon rattling forward. Your orders are to protect the prophet and widows within, are they not? Baruch paused to ask, half in, half out the gate.

That too should be plain, Eitan said, replacing his helmet. I, and the others left behind.

See that you do, then. Baruch said. See too, Eitan, that you concern yourself much less with the private affairs of others and more with their safety. Understood?

Eitan nodded.

And if, when I return, young man… Baruch began. (Eitan, easily the oldest and least vigorous of all the captain’s men at Tahpanhes, smiled when so addressed.) …if I find that anyone in this compound has suffered so little as a scratch due to your negligence, it shall not go well for you.

You, sir, are as odd as the prophet you serve, Eitan sighed, shaking his head, more entertained by Baruch’s harsh speech than he was offended. Yet may this day pass well for you despite your confounding manner.

After a quick nod, Baruch coaxed his mule out to the roadway where, energized by his new, outdoor venue, the nob-kneed beast began at once to snort and twist and balk.

*

In the absence of good company, a nagging remembrance got hold of Baruch as he made his way toward the coast. During the reign of Efrat’s uncle, Jehoiakim, the Lord warned Judah through Jeremiah (and Baruch had written down) …

O ye women…teach your daughters wailing and everyone her neighbor lamentation, for death is come up into our windows and is entered into our palaces…

What could have been plainer? A humbler king would have dropped to his knees and begged the Lord for mercy, but Jehoiakim ignored all warnings, as would his brother and successor, Zedekiah. As had Yohanan, that proud and willful captain, when Judah’s kings were done.

Just as judgment fell hard upon Judah, was it not also due at Tahpanhes? Perhaps not. For the Lord, through his prophet, had also voiced a mystery. "And it shall come to pass," the Lord had said…

"…after I have uprooted them, that I will again have compassion on them and I will bring them back, each one to his inheritance and each one to his land.

Back from where? Baruch wondered. To where? he asked aloud though only his mule could hear him, for Judah was certainly done.

And why would God forgive a people so unworthy?

And when would God do it?

And how?

4. I am not alone

Grinding down a rutted road with an unchanging view of a sullen mule had at first dampened Baruch’s spirits, but an onshore breeze and smoother going near the sea soon revived him. Halfway to Sena, at a bend in the road called Tjaru, Baruch crossed what the locals called the Sena stream. Tradition held that the sodden, lonely, wide and weed-choked bog had once been the east-most branch of the mighty Nile, teeming with barges, lined by farms and once a haven to fishes.

You there, mule! Baruch called out (for the creature had no other name), walk straight and sooner end our misery. But mules were born to disobedience sure as men were bound to sin. So, in the end, a proper six-hour journey lasted more than eight.

*

They arrived well after dark. At Sena’s west-most limit lay the remote edge of the same expansive marsh that wrapped Tahpanhes on three sides. Baruch coaxed mule and wagon onto a connecting causeway toward the city. Sparks spun up from scores of campfires left and right, about which men rose to their feet as Baruch passed, all eying him with suspicion, and he tried to meet each hostile glance unblinking, to appear unafraid.

"If you can grasp, straight, mule, he whispered, do straight now."

Once convinced he had gone far enough, Baruch steered off the lane toward an open spot. When he hopped down from the cart to assist his wheezing mule across a swale, he found himself confronted by several snarling fellows, arrived for a closer look. If you hope to camp here, traveler, the most muscular among them began in a desert dialect Baruch was grateful to recognize, you must pay me.

So, as it happened, Efrat had been right. No sooner had he arrived in Sena than his next safe breath had come in question. Instead of answering, Baruch began to stroke his animal’s neck, anxious to calm the beast’s sudden twitching,

Look here, another said, pointing at Baruch with his thumb. You must pay me too.

It’s a cold evening, Baruch said. I’ll need wood for a fire. Then, nodding toward a nearby stack of twigs, he added. Is that your kindling? It seems dry.

For some reason his confronters began to laugh. You are unarmed and alone, was the big man’s answer. Turning to grin at his companions, he added, This strikes us as unwise.

More laughter.

Truly, I am unarmed, Baruch said. Thus, I pose no threat to you.

You would pose none with two fine swords in hand and a sharp knife between your teeth, the same said, and the others laughed again, although considerably louder.

Gift me wood for a proper fire, Baruch said, and I’ll camp among you tonight. Come morning, we’ll share a meal and I’ll reveal to you a powerful vision. I promise that you shall find that much more beneficial than the casual waste of my blood. After that short speech, his accosters stood quietly about him blinking, perhaps a bit confused, certainly unconvinced. But if you find no merit in my proposal, Baruch added quickly, simply wish me well and send me away. I’ll take my offer farther into town.

There must be something of value in that wagon, one of them mumbled, stepping forward, swinging a piecing axe at his side. I will have a look.

Patience! came a new voice from behind them (in a clumsy rendering of the coastal tongue). It would be rude to not allow this stranger his say.

Hearing that voice, the axe man stopped to frown in its direction and it seemed that, if only for the moment, Baruch’s life had been prolonged.

*

There were no introductions, but Baruch learned later that the man who spoke on his behalf out was called Tamir. And this Tamir, having emerged from the shadows to stand boldly at Baruch’s side, seemed quite fit and completely fearless. Curious too. Do I know you? Tamir asked, as the violent types near them stood by idly, dumb and frowning.

Forgive me, Baruch answered nervously, but, just now, there must be several better questions you might ask.

No, I certainly know you, Tamir said, stepping quickly to a campfire and snatching up a burning brand. With its flickering light, he more closely examined Baruch’s features. Jerusalem? he asked when done, holding the glowing shard so close to Baruch’s beard that it was difficult not to flinch.

Baruch nodded nervously, his eyes upon the axe man, who had begun again to edge closer.

You men! Tamir called out to axe man and the others. Here stands the Judean scribe who once served the Hebrew prophet Jeremiah! I am sure of it.

"Who you two are, or ever were, is no