Daughter of Asher

By Olivia Kidron

“They tried siege ladders last night, but we were warned and shot naphtha flares into the city. The archers kneel behind the upper rampart and, as the Lady Im’Annas, our Seer, walks past, they rise up and shoot over her head. The Parthians are too superstitious to even try to shoot at her…” 

            The prophetess, Serah, daughter of Asher, arrives at the temple in AD 70, so does the Roman general, Pompey, but unlike him, she does not leave.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Jul 21, 2023
• ISBN: 9781398424395

Olivia Kidron

Olivia Kidron first put pen to paper aged two and produced results: two extra pints from the milkman; after that there was a gap! A former dancer and choreographer, she is also an artist and musician, and has written for several publications. Olivia lives in Britain, part of a contemplative community of Franciscan sisters. She enjoys engaging with people—and God—and fashioning stories.

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About the Author

Olivia Kidron first put pen to paper aged two and produced results: two extra pints from the milkman; after that there was a gap! A former dancer and choreographer, she is also an artist and musician, and has written for several publications. Olivia lives in Britain, part of a contemplative community of Franciscan sisters. She enjoys engaging with people—and God—and fashioning stories.

Dedication

In memory

of

Mother Maria Francesca of the Annunciation PCC

13 March 2021

and all who have died of coronavirus.

Copyright Information ©

Olivia Kidron 2023

The right of Olivia Kidron to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

ISBN 9781398424388 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781398424395 (ePub e-book)

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First Published 2023

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The Genealogy of Asher

This is the genealogy of the people of Asher, mighty warriors, princes and prophetesses. From c1400 BC.

Abraham was the father of Isaac

Isaac was the father of Jacob

Jacob was the father of Asher by Zilpah, the handmaid of Leah

Asher was the father of Immnah, Ishvah, Ishvi, Beria and their sister Serah, when they went down to Egypt

Beria was the father of Heber

Heber was the father of Japhlet, Shomer, Hotham and their sister Shua

Japhlet was the father of Pasach

Pasach was the father of Shemer

Shemer was the father of Helem

Helem was the father of Zopher

Zopher was the father of Shuer

Shuer was the father of Jether

Jether was the father of Jephuneh

Jephuneh was the father of Ochran and the prophetess Serah, and in this, the four hundredth year of their sojourn, the sons of Jacob left Egypt

Ochran was the father of Pagiel

Pagiel was the father of Shelomi, who led his people into Canaan

Shelomi was the father of Ahihud

Ahihud was the father of Achshaph, Helkuth and Hali, mighty men of war who took the cities of the Pur of Joshua

Achshaph was the father of Achzib

Achzib was the father of Ummah

Ummah was the father of Shammah

Shammah was the father of Rehob, who set aside his portion for the Levites

Rehob was the father of Amad, Neieh and their sister Serah. In their day, the Kings were chosen. She was that wise woman of Abel-Beth-Maacah who sought the peace and welfare of the faithful in Israel.

Neieh was the father of Arah

Arah was the father of Mishal, in whose days the ten tribes made themselves separate from the sons of Judah and Benjamin

Mishal was the father of Malchiel

Malchiel was the father of Beri and Be’zer

Beri was the father of Imna

Imna was the father of Ira

Ira was the father of Hallel

Hallel was the father of Imlah

Imlah was the father of Michaiah

Michaiah was the father of Michael, in his days our family went down to Judah at the invitation of King Hezekiah and our hearts being set on the Lord our God, we did not return to our lands.

Michael was the father of David and his sister Ma’acha who became the wife of Machir, the son of Manasseh. In their days, Shalmaneser, King of Assyria, took and destroyed Samaria and the houses of the Imnites, the Ishvahites and the Ishvites were lost to us and we are accounted as the only heirs of Asher.

David was the father of Benasher

Benasher was the father of Libnah

Libnah was the father of Jeremiah

Jeremiah was the father of Harnepher and his sister, Hamutal, who was the Queen of Josiah and the mother of Jehoahaz, Jehoachim and Zedekiah. She died in captivity.

Harnepher was the father of Jonathan who went into captivity to Babylon

Jonathan was the father of Ab’asher

Ab’asher was the father of Heldai

Heldai was the father of Ochran and Iptahel

Ochran was the father of Asah, who went out of Babylon up to Egypt

Asah was the father of Beria, Emek and Ebron

Beria was the father of Be’ira

Be’ira was the father of Ptolemy

Ptolemy was the father of Phanuel

Phanuel was the father of Serah called Anna who married the priest Seth. Anna was the mother of Annas, High Priest and the grandmother of the High Priests Eliezer, Jonathan, Theophilus, Annas the younger and of Matthias and their sister, the prophetess Serah, who was also wife to a High Priest…

I

The Serahs

In the reign of Ptolemy VII of Egypt, seven years before the death of Alexander Jannaeus, the Hasmonaean ruler of Judah, in 174 Olympiad of the Greeks, in the consulship of Carbo and Cinna at Rome, when the Sibylline Books were burnt to ash, in the 3,769 year since the creation of the World in the old Hebrew calendar, Circa 83 BC: the birth of Serah, later called Anna, in Egypt, by the Nile above Leontopolis.

When you are small, you take everything for granted. In this God is merciful, for if you saw how odd things were you would begin to be dismayed too soon.

My mother died giving birth to me. In my world, my grandmother, whose name was also Serah, ruled with a hand of bronze until I was four. My father seemed to me a nervous man who disliked to see me climb trees, and got in the way when I wanted to sail my small reed boat on the Nile. His name was ‘Face of God’, Phanuel in our tongue. I had kindly Egyptian maids and nurses, all of whom were called Abdi, which means ‘my servant’, one or two of whom were always within call.

Ithram of the line of Iptahel, son of Heldai, and Rogah of the line of Ebron, the son of Asah, were both fifteen when I was four years old and became conscious of them.

This is a picture.

I was walking by the Nile holding a hand of each of them; we came to a cutting in the bank, and I let go of them and scrambled down to the water’s edge. A creature, whom I later discovered was a small crocodile, came up the sand and opened its jaws. I understood its distress immediately. It had a savage hook trapped between two teeth. I carefully freed it, and the creature made a sort of dance with its head in gratitude and slid back into the water. It had all happened very quickly and when I turned around, Ithram and Rogah had their bows drawn. Ithram said nothing and bit his cheek from inside, Rogah’s face was streaming with sweat and his hands were shaking, You…you… he said.

I could not understand what it was about, but when we got home it was explained to me at length. I had seen slaves whipped sometimes. However, nobody whipped me; it was borne upon me that my conduct had not given perfect satisfaction. As I could not understand why, this correction made no impression.

What did abide was the calmness of Ithram who had dark eyes, and Rogah’s excitement; he had curiously pale hair. I decided to prefer Rogah, for I thought Ithram might be laughing at me inside.

By the time I was seven the small mysteries were revealed to show larger ones. I was of the tribe of Asher. I was the last descendant of the direct line of Beria. ‘Face of God’, my father, was the Last Prince. My mother had borne no son. After her, there were no daughters of the House of Asher.

Ithram and Rogah were my remote cousins, they were sons of younger sons of our house. By listening behind curtains, I further learnt that I had to marry one of them and have as many children as possible. So that there could be a new Asherim and a great family could descend from me. Not surprisingly, this unsettled me.

When she came to me, I plied my grandmother for details. But she replied in stories that did not seem to have anything to do with Ithram, Rogah or the dozens of children I was to bring to birth.

Abraham was the father of Isaac, the father of Jacob, grandmother chanted, as if it were a spell. Jacob was the father of Asher, by Zilpah the handmaid of Leah. Asher was the father of Immnah, Ishvah, Ishvi, Beria and their sister Serah, when they went down to Egypt.

Serah was lovely to look upon; she had henna-coloured hair and dark eyes. Her hands were beautiful; she played the harp like the angels of the Most High. Her voice was like water flowing, like the song of a bird, like a mother’s lullaby; what she sang came to pass, for she was a prophetess.

Now, when the brothers returned out of Egypt to take Jacob, their father, down to his son Joseph, he was heavy with age and he had never doubted their lie that Joseph was dead. So Judah said to his brother Asher, ‘Let your daughter, Serah, sing to our father that our brother Joseph is still living; so the shock may not kill him, nor bring his wrath upon our guilty heads.’

"Thus, Serah bat Asher took her harp and sang to her grandfather, ‘Know, O Father of my Father; Joseph your son lives, Joseph your son lives, Joseph your son…’

Jacob awoke and said, ‘I heard a voice from heaven that Joseph my son lives, can it be so?’

‘It is so,’ she said and kissed his forehead and he came from his tent and saw his sons. ‘Joseph, my son, lives!’ he exclaimed."

I was Serah, too, of course. This fact did impress me and I said so. There is always a Serah in the house of Asher, my grandmother said.

I went off to play knucklebones with Rogah and he seemed properly impressed when I told him about it.

Winter came, and after it spring. The Nile’s belly was swollen with the flood. Rogah and I lay on our backs and watched the great Milky Way.

That’s the river in heaven, Rogah said, confidently, that is the Nile in the sky. They steer the barges by its map.

Summer was all grain and there were no locusts. The Greeks, the Egyptians and the Sons of Jacob lived, where the wealthy lived, by the Nile. My father was the Prince of Asher and beyond our house and vast estates were the halls of the High Priest, Onias, who had fled Jerusalem to build (or rebuild) a Temple to the Most High in Leontopolis. Beyond the halls of Onias was the dwelling of the man called Jannai of Judah, whose son was called the Melkh, ‘king’. He was even called the Melkhi, ‘my king’. They were people we only whispered about, even grandmother. I saw Melkhi once, he was older than I and younger than my cousins, he had the most extraordinary eyes. He did not seem to be a king of anywhere and his people lived very simply.

Then grandmother told me another story. "We were four hundred years in the land of Egypt when the Lord called us out to the land of promise under the staff of Moses, when Ulla was the father of Ochran and his sister, the prophetess Serah. Moses came to Serah and said, ‘Pray for us. Tell us where the body of Joseph rests, for the sons of Ephraim and Manasseh must carry the bones of Joseph back to Canaan or we cannot go.’ Then Serah took Moses to the banks of the river, and holding out her hands over the waters she sang. The river swirled as three great crocodiles moved beneath it.

Slowly, a sarcophagus rose to the surface and the Nile beasts pushed it towards the bank. Then the prophetess Serah stretched forth her hands, palms outward. The beasts departed. So Elishama of Ephraim and Gamaliel of Manasseh took up the sarcophagus of their father Joseph and showed it to the people."

Grandmother watched me for a while, then closed her eyes. That was her way of dismissing us. We bowed and left. Rogah was absent, only Ithram was with me. I took his hand and we walked through our olive groves that prospered like no other by the Nile. When he thought I had pondered enough for a nine year old, he smiled down at me.

Crocodiles are part of your heritage, Serah.

I don’t think so, I remembered the earlier incident rather well, It was in pain, it wanted to be helped. All things look for help when they are hurt.

Do they indeed? He was a man now of twenty-one years, but he went down on one knee and hoisted me onto his shoulder. He lengthened his stride through the olive groves.

Why are our olives better than those of the Greeks on the other shore?

Your father says it is due to chicken dung and bone meal. The soil here is too damp for olives. Not as our forefathers say it was, in our own lands below Carmel.

Is that why he never opens the sluice gates to the orchards at inundation?

Even so.

Ithram, where are we going?

I am taking you to the river to see if the crocodiles will obey you.

If they come ashore and don’t obey me. They will bite you!

True. Possibly. But then I trust you.

I stroked his cheek, Your face is prickly, I said, surprised.

That is life, little sister of the Serahs.

Will my face get prickly?

We must hope not.

I was only nine, but I suddenly discovered that I liked Ithram more than Rogah. I liked him more than anyone else. I rearranged the bow and arrow-sling around his shoulders, put my arms around his neck and wished I was wearing my best dress.

You don’t need your best dress, he said, "only