5E

5E

Elam knew it had become a test of wills. When the Remnant ate supper he said to Rosh, "Yet a third covering for the tent shall be made of ram skins dyed red, and over this you shall lay badgers' skins." Then Josiah and his son Tobiah left the camp to hunt through the night. Zethan the Benjaminite and Asher, son of Jabez, killed four rams from the flocks of the Remnant for their skins, while Zehan's wife Atara prepared herbs to make the red dye, but Elam forbade his wife Serach from helping Atara, and Jemuel too held back his own wife Iscah.

When the Remnant made ready to make the next march Josiah and Tobiah returned with the badgers they had killed but there were not enough to cover the Tent of Meeting. They pledged to continue seeking more until Elam's commandment had been fulfilled. And the people moved out.

There were many imperatives in the White Scroll, and Rosh was not nearly done reciting them. "Do not eat carrion like the vultures do. Do not cook a goat in its own mother's milk. Keep you the the Feast of Harvest and the Feast of Ingathering."

And again Elam was annoyed, but a smirk ever graced his face as he contemplated the next series of tasks he would lay on Rosh, he and any who would follow him. That evening Elam said, "Now to the woodwork. The boards get silver bars overlaid with gold. You shall make a veil to divide the tent into two parts. One part shall be just run-of-the-mill holy, and the other part shall be very holy. The Ark shall be left in the very holy part, but you shall make a table for showbread and candles and place them in the ordinary holy part."

And Abner came to the aid of Rosh to cut tenons in the boards for the Tent of Meeting, and to help build the table of wood overlaid with gold, with rings and staves to bear it like the Ark of the Covenant. His wife Tabitha prepared the dinnerware for the showbread. Again the people toiled late into the night to aid Rosh as he fulfilled the demands of their chieftain to prepare a tent for the Ark of the Covenant worthy of the God they served. On this evening the curtains with gold clasps and images of sphinxes were completed.

In the morning, in the middle of the clearing between the thirteen tents of the Remnant a fold-door appeared. Two tall figures were seen within, and they remained even as the fold-door itself ceased to exist. The men of the Remnant had never allowed their vigilance to lapse in the slightest amount since the attack that cost the life of Lael. Jabez and Rimon let fly with arrows, but these were a clean miss.