TC-Patriarchs

ALA: When Melchizedek brought Abram into a covenant relationship with Chokhmah there was a name change. Abram means 'the father is exalted' which had glorified Terah rather than his son. In the ritual Melchizedek changed his name to Abraham, which means 'father of many nations'.

ALB: The Abrahamic Covenant was marked by a very strange ritual. Melchizedek took a cow, a goat, and a ram and split their carcasses in two. Then a floating barbecue and a floating torch passed between those pieces. After that, Abraham and all his people passed between them.

ALC: Abraham was telling Chokhmah, 'If I ever break faith with you, may I be cut in half like these animals.'

The strangest part of the covenant was cooked up by Keter who wanted to sabotage the whole thing. Previously Abraham's worship of Chokhmah had been a personal devotion.

ALD: All of the interactions had occurred solely between Abraham and Chokhmah and were mediated through the Ophan Melchizedek. Sarah embraced Chokhmah because she loved Abraham and she was his wife. Abraham's servants embraced Chokhmah on the principle of what the boss says goes.

ALE: But with the introduction of circumcision the worship of Chokhmah became corporate worship. And this proto-Judaism became something embedded in the culture rather than a choice. Even babies were circumcised. Anyone not circumcised was cut off from the people, so to speak.

ALF: But there was a benefit to circumcision not intended by Keter. Circumcised men were chafed day and night. They lasted longer during intercourse before making the noise that meant it was all over. And that resulted in a happy lady who was less likely to step out on him.

ALG: The Jews call the story of the Binding of Yishak the Akedah.

When the boy was about fourteen, Melchizedek said to Abraham, 'Take now your son Yishak and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will show to you.'

ALH: The countenance of Abraham fell. At first he searched the face of Melchizedek, guessing it was a bad joke. Then he suspected the Ophan had gone insane. He was tempted to refuse outright as he did once before in Harran. After that he considered offering a defense of his son.

ALI: In the end Abraham remembered the covenant, and his affirmation of loyalty to the one he knew as Chokhmah. Melchizidek says this Chokhmah now requires the life of his son? So be it. 'Let my word be true. I will obey my God, even though I find his demands to be hateful.'

ALJ: When all was ready Abraham left his flocks grazing on the plains nigh to the coast. There he left his wife and all his servants. With Yishak at his side they were led by Melchizedek east among treeless hills with the Artifact as surety against any who would waylay them.

ALK: On the first night, Melchizedek asked Abraham to look at the stars and see if he could count them. “So shall your descendants be,” said hy. There are only six thousand stars visible to the unaided eye but Abraham got the point. Chokhmah would bestow upon him much progeny.

ALL: Abraham agreed to have only Chokhmah as God and trust that she would always do what she said she would do. That was the basis of the first covenant between the Elohim and human beings, the first contract made between the divine and the mortal on something of an equal basis.

ALM: Abraham possessed many animals and great riches. He was already living in the golden age as far as he was concerned, and did not pine away for 'salvation' or an afterlife. Abraham was living a full life and he accepted that he was mortal like everything else in the world.

ALN: The only thing remaining that Chokhmah could give Abraham was the assurance that his name and his blood would be carried into the future by a people who would live in the land he had been promised.

Two days and three nights passed but they had seen no game along the way.

ALO: When they drew near to 'Mount' Moriah and Melchizedek pointed the hill out to them. Yishak asked, 'Where is the animal for the offering?' Melchizedek said nothing and glanced at Abraham.

Abraham deflected this question, yet he could not bring himself to lie to his son.

ALP: He said, rather, 'God himself will provide the animal.'

Yishak was excited to see what sort of beast God was going to provide for the sacrifice and ran ahead up the hill with youthful energy. Abraham said to Melchizedek, 'When it is time you will help me restrain my son.'

ALQ: When they caught up with the boy on the hilltop Yishak called out, 'Father, there's nothing here!'

Abraham had a length of rope and was tying loops in it. He said, 'Join me here son, and help with this.' Thus distracted, Melchizadek took the opportunity to seize the boy.

ALR: Yishak didn't cry out at first because he didn't even understand what was happening until Abraham and Melchizedek had lashed him securely to a flat boulder that would serve as the altar. Abraham would never forget his son's utter terror and the betrayal he must have felt.

ALS: After that Abraham didn't need to work up the will to slay his own son, he was actually in a hurry to do it. Each instant the helpless Yishak lay in mortal terror of his own father tore at his heart. Abraham couldn't stand it. Melchizedek was barely in time to restrain him.

ALT: 'Enough!' he shouted. 'Do not harm the boy!' To be certain, Melchizedek used the Artifact to cut the lad free once more.

Yishak stood at a safe distance and watched his father's face work through a storm of dark emotions. At length Abraham said, 'So. A day of testing?'

ALU: Melchizedek nodded in the affirmative. 'It is a day that will not be forgotten while cold and heat, seed-time and harvest remain. God knows now that you will not even withhold your only son from him.'

Abraham longed to embrace Yishak but saw how the boy stood well away.

ALV: Abraham said, 'Could there not have been another way?'

Melchizedek said, 'It would be difficult to explain the background of the controversy. Let it be enough to know that the enemy of man has made certain claims, and God has chosen you and your descendants to answer them.'

ALW: 'What I dread most of all,' lamented Abraham, 'is answering the questions of my wife after Yishak has spoken to her of all this, which he undoubtedly will.'

Even as he spoke the mouth of the bridge in space-time appeared on the hilltop and the crack of a whip was heard. ALX: A ram rushed through the opening. With one smooth stroke of the Artifact's immaterial black shaft Melchizedek separated the head and body of the animal as it emerged from the bubble.

Hy said to Abraham, 'I will return to Earth when Yishak is of age to have his own wife.'

ALY: Then the fold-door winked out of existence and Melchizedek was gone with it. Only one tiny artifact remained, indistinguishable from a fly, dragging an invisible fold-line stretching back to Chokhmah and left there to permit the eloah to see what Abraham and Yishak would do.

ALZ: And Yishak knew his father's words to him earlier had been true. God really had provided the sacrificial animal as Abraham promised. The boy began to trust his father once more. He returned to the hilltop and helped Abraham make a burnt offering of the ram to Chokhmah.

AMA: The fold-door left the Ophan in the very place where hy had been taken, the audience hall of hyz father, but only one lamp was burning to give light. Melchizedek had forgotten that when it was day on one world it was night on the other, and hy marveled how that could be.

AMB: Knowing Melchiyahu slept, hy went the wing of the palace where hyz sister Lilith lived, knowing har to be somewhat nocturnal. When hy drew near to har chambers hy saw servants going out with wet linen and going in with dry linen. Hy wondered if hy really wanted to see this.

AMC: The worst fears of Melchizedek materialized when hy came into the presence of Lilith and found har to be nude from the waist down, with each leg in the air held by a servant, debauched even by hyz sister's standards. But Michael was also present amid a flurry of activity.

AMD: Lilith spied hym approaching and smiled broadly. 'Deck, you've come! And just in time!'

Michael said to har, 'The head has breached. Push, Lil! Push!'

Melchizedek saw little after that save it all very liquid. Afterwards hy realized to hyz surprise that hy had fainted.

AME: After Lilith's servants revived Melchizedek hy guessed hy must have been unconscious for some time. The newborn was already skin-to-skin against its mother.

Sha said, 'Deck, is sha not beautiful?'

'I see there have been many changes here these three years I've been away.'

AMF: 'Who more worthy to wed an Ophan of Salem than a Seraph?' replied Lilith, affirming what Melchizedek had long guessed about Michael, that hy was the living avatar of an eloah, greater in glory than any king. 'And Deck, in your absence the city has withstood a mighty attack.'

AMG: Hy said, 'Beloved sister, you are the most valiant and hardy yin I know, but unless I am still unconscious and dreaming, just now you went through one of the most difficult and painful experiences possible for an angel or nephil or human being, and did not once cry out.'

AMH: I cannot stand to watch my wife suffer in the smallest way,' Michael explained, 'so I gave har a gift. Sha can stand apart from any pain, if sha so chooses.'

'And I most certainly did choose, tonight,' Lilith said, as a nipple slipped into the mouth of har tiny Leliel.

AMI: 'Is that such a wise thing to do, Lord Michael?' asked Melchizedek. 'Pain is not the enemy it is made out to be. There are some born without the ability to feel pain, and they rarely survive childhood.

'None of the B'nei Elohim are destined for long life,' Michael replied.

AMJ: 'There are things Michael has entrusted to me that it is well Keter or Daat never discover,' Lilith told har brother. 'Not the most refined torment could wrest them from me now.'

Melchizedek caught the eye of Michael and told hym, 'Abraham proved true in the testing.'

AMK: 'That is so,' said Michael, 'but he has little love for a god who demanded the life of his son. Still, he and Yishak are now making a burnt offering of the kill. And it is not their love that I crave.'

'I suppose a man might remain loyal to a god that he actively hates.'

AML: 'But come, Melchizedek, let your mind be at ease. It will be years before I bid you return to the other world. For now rejoice with myself and your sister: you have a niece! Tomorrow morning we shall see your father and speak of what has befallen Salem in your absence.'

AMM: When Yishak was seventeen years of age Melchizedek returned to Earth and journeyed once more to Harran in the land of Abraham's own people. There hy became acquainted with Bethuel, who was the son of Milcah. Milcah was the wife of Nahor. And Nahor was Abraham's brother.

AMN: In the household of Bethuel there dwelt a beautiful young woman named Rebekah. She was Abraham's great niece, and therefore Yishak's first cousin once-removed. Eyeing her, Melchizedek told Bethuel it had fallen to hym to find a wife for Yishak from among Abraham's kin.

AMO: The Ophan had access to Abraham's entire estate and hy had brought as much as ten mules could carry, as well as precious stones and jewelry from Heaven itself. All these riches he dangled before the eyes of Bethuel, prompting him to say, 'Rebekah, will you go with this man?'

AMP: Thus Rebekah was formally asked to take her place in the epic set in motion when Chokhmah inserted herself into human history and commanded Abraham to go to the land of Canaan. But the display of wealth did not sway Rebekah. She wanted to know more about Yishak himself.

AMQ: Melchizedek spoke to Rebekah of the time three years prior when as a boy Yishak feared losing his life at the point of a blade. Hy remaining carefully vague about the fact that hy hymself had relayed the kill order from Chokhmah, the eloah worshiped by Abraham as his deity.

AMR: And Melchizedek told Rebekah how the incident caused Yishak to develop a more profound affection for his mother, while deliberately neglecting to tell her how Yishak in fact almost never left his mother's tent after he barely escaped being sacrificed to his father's god.

AMS: The prince used all the statecraft hy had learned at the foot of hyz father King Melchiyahu, which was indeed the real reason Michael had sent hym back to Harran. Yet Rebekah did not make her decision on the basis of Melchizedek's testimony of Yishak's personal character.

AMT: Melchizedek had presented hymself to Rebekah and her family as courteous, humble, and devout. The gifts were obligatory. Something still seemed a bit off, but she decided to proceed on a hunch. She judged Melchizedek to be a good man (for a mere human she thought hym to be).

AMU: Rebekah was very intelligent and it stood to reason that if the servant was a good man (for a simple servant Melchizedek held hymself out to be) then hyz masters, her kin Abraham and Yishak, must be good men as well. So she answered her father Bethuel by saying, 'I will go.'

AMV: When Melchizedek returned to the oasis at Beersheba, Yishak brought Rebekah into his late mother Sarah's tent and took her as his wife, and he loved her. So was Yishak comforted after his mother's death. Melchizedek, in a sense, had provided Yishak with a replacement mother.

AMW: Rebekah sensed this and felt perhaps a twinge of regret, but she was an honorable woman who had assented to the marriage sight unseen.

Then Melchizedek received word that hyz father Melchiyahu had died in hyz sleep, making hym the king of Salem by right of succession.

AMX: So Melchizedek bid farewell to Abraham, Yishak, and Rebekah. With hyz two servants Zophiel and Kemuel hy passed out of all knowledge of those who dwell on Earth, and came not again. The task appointed to hym to set aside a holy people for Chokhmah had been fulfilled.

AQA: For many generations of men Chokhmah and Keter carried out a test to see if one clan on Earth could maintain a covenant with the elohim without any intervention. The eloah Daat, in the guise of a yang named Israel, made a journey to Canaan to see the place with hyz own eyes.

AQB: Israel took little thought for his personal safety. Chokhmah said Yakob was more the son of his mother than the son of his father, by all accounts a man who preferred the womanly arts of whispering and plotting to more masculine action on the field of the hunt or battle.

AQC: When Israel caught up with Yakob he was crossing the Jordan River. There Yakob sent messengers to meet his brother Esau and mention that he had a lot of spare animals, hopefully to smooth over any hard feelings Esau might still have from being cheated out of his blessings.

AQD: Yakob and Esau were twins but Esau had become a cunning hunter, a extroverted man of the field, while Yakob was an introverted man dwelling in tents. Esau derived his 'life, and life more abundantly' from the earthly goods which he was able to obtain by his own efforts.

AQE: Yakob, as the more interior man, would never be able to compete on those terms. Yet he was a survivor. He would contrive to obtain more abundant life another way. The first step was to claim the Birthright, which entitled Yishak's son to a double share of Abraham's estate.

AQF: One time Esau's individualism failed him. He came in from the field famished, literally near death, and begged Yakob for some food. Yakob provided bread and lentil soup, but the price was Yishak's Birthright that was Esau's by dint of being born just moments before Yakob.

AQG: Esau was more than willing to trade his Birthright away, so close to death was he. Centuries later one Saulus, a follower of Yeshua (the human avatar of Chokhmah's daughter Binah) would say anyone who did not provide for those of his own house was worse than an infidel.

AQH: As it turned out, Esau just needed a little help that one time. So he left with a full stomach and almost convinced himself the Birthright was nothing much anyway. The real prize was the Blessing, which conveyed authority. But Yakob, with his mom's help, would snag that too.

AQI: The messengers returned with a report that Esau was coming out to meet Yakob with four hundred men, so he divided his caravan in twain. If Esau smote one the other might escape. Yakob prayed to Chokhmah for deliverance, then set aside a portion of his herd as a gift to Esau.

AQJ: Yakob sent two hundred twenty goats, two hundred twenty sheep, thirty horses, fifty cattle, twenty asses, and ten foals, which his servants took on ahead to Esau. As for Yakob himself, he hung back as a rearguard, not against Esau but against someone else he happened to see.

AQK: Yakob hid himself amid thick vegetation near the place where the Zarqa River merged with the Jordan River. When the stranger approached, unaware of Yakob's presence, Yakob assailed him suddenly and there ensued a bitter fistfight that changed into an epic wrestling match.

AQL: The stranger kept grasping Yakob's clothing to hurl him around, so Yakob shed his clothing and fought entirely in the nude. Then Israel saw how Abraham's grandson bore the peculiar genital mutilation that Keter had demanded in hyz bid to sabotage Chokhmah's experiment.

AQM: So Israel had the answer hy had come to Earth looking for, but there was still the growing matter of the ongoing tussle. As they fought Yakob kept asking, 'Who are you?' but Israel refused to say. As the night wore on hy grew dismayed how Yakob proved to be so tenacious.

AQN: Israel wrenched Yakob's femur out of its socket at the hip, causing intense torment, but Yakob refused to yield. At dawn Israel, a full cubit taller than Yakob and far more bulky, was at the end of hyz own resources and near exhaustion. Hy commanded Yakob to let hym go.

AQO: Yakob said, 'I will not release you until you tell me who you are, and bless me.'

Daat said, 'No longer shall men call you Yakob, but Israel, for you have contended with gods and men, and you have prevailed. You have even wrested my name away, and taken it for your own.'

AQP: Then Yakob unhanded the bruised, living avatar of Daat, nameless now. Hy had sufficient dark energy banked to crack open a fold-door little more than a cubit tall, just enough to wriggle back into Heaven like a maggot, and hy never came again closer than the Earth's moon.

AQQ: Three of Israel's sons found Pop beaten and unable to stand, with a dislocated hip. Two of them held him down with a bit between his teeth while the third popped it back in place. With help he was able rejoin his wives, but he walked with a limp for the rest of his life.

AQR: Esau drew near with his men. Israel put forth his eleven children with their four mothers, then passed in front of them and bowed before his brother. And to Israel's everlasting surprise, Esau did not strike him, but rather embraced and kissed him, and they both wept.

AQS: So the great family feud was ended, if there ever had been a feud. After Yakob had fled many years prior, Esau soon forgot that his Blessing had been stolen by his twin, since he obtained most of Yishak's possessions anyway, and after that he had come to miss his brother.

AQT: Israel introduced his children and their mothers to Esau, and he begged his brother to accept the gift of herd animals he had already sent to him, saying, 'Take them please, my lord, because Chokhmah has dealt graciously with me, and I have enough. More than enough!'

AQU: Throughout the meeting Israel was courteous to his brother and called him 'my lord' though the Blessing required Esau to call Israel lord. The love Israel had for his brother outshone all that. And Esau assured Israel that none of his men gave Israel his ass kicking.

AQV: Esau agreed to go on ahead because Israel had children and young animals and a limp, and he could not travel very fast. So they parted on good terms and both brothers rejoiced that things had transpired so. When next they met, in a year, it was to bury their father Yishak.

AQW: Israel would ponder the strange nighttime fight for the rest of his life, whenever his limp prompted him. Ultimately he drew the conclusion that Chokhmah had sent a thrall to put him to the test even as his grandfather had been tested with an order to slay his father Yishak.

AQX: Yishak never felt much love for Chokhmah after his boyhood brush with death, and this ambivalence seemed to breed true in Esau, who didn't know what to say when he helped Israel lay their father in his tomb. Israel was a more devout son, made all the more so by the fight.

AQY: As the head of his large and still-growing family Israel was also the high priest who mediated the covenant Chokhmah had initiated with his grandfather, but only his third son, Levi, seemed willing to aid him in making the required yearly sacrifice of the best animals.

AQZ: Israel knew he could do a thing that would assure his progeny would never dwindle in their devotion to Chokhmah, simply by making it in the best interest of his son Levi, and Levi's sons after him, to maintain that devotion. This he did by forbidding them ever to own land.

ARA: Israel lived to see his family grow to seventy persons, and when he died there was no single patriarch holding authority over all his descendants. But the seed of Levi scattered among their kin and dependent upon them for necessities became the glue that united the clan.

ARB: When Levi died, his son Kohath became high priest. He introduced the special garments that the progeny of Levi wore when they made burnt offerings to Chokhmah. And his son Amram was wed to Kohath's sister Yochebed, for such close marriages were not yet forbidden by the clan.

ARC: During the lifetime of Amram the children of Israel increased in numbers to become a tribe. Some tended wandering herds of livestock as Israel had done, but others settled in the hill country east of the great sea where reliable rains made it possible to grow food crops.

ARD: When Amram's son Aaron became high priest Chokhmah left in his keeping a tablet made as it were of stone, deep black, with ten lines of proto-Sinaitic cuneiform characters into which molten gold had been poured. This was the Abrahamic covenant but Aaron couldn't read a word.

ARE: Nevertheless the origin of the tablet was literally out of this world. Aaron's son Eleazar built a chest of wood to contain the relic, and with his brothers Nadab, Abihu and Ithamar he would carry it before Aaron from settlement to settlement among the children of Israel.

ARF: By the time Eleazar begat his son Phinehas the twelve clans of Israel had become tribes in their own right, and sufficient gold had been collected by the Levites to completely cover the cabinet containing the tablet of the covenant. The box or ark became itself a holy relic.

ARG: It would not do to let the now holy ark to be exposed to the elements, so the high priest Phinehas caused a tent of fine linen and the skins of animals to be constructed to cover it. By the time his son Abishua became high priest even this tent had become holy in turn.

ARH: So the extra special fort of blankets was covered by even more blankets, and accessed on the day of atonement through a run-of-the-mill fort of blankets. The first time Abishua did this, Chokhmah spoke to him from the ark of the covenant and told him to remove the tablet.

ARI: Chokhmah walked Abishua through the ten lines of gold embossed symbols on the black tablet that captured the Abrahamic covenant, beginning with the first declaration, 'I AM YOUR LORD GOD.' In generations to come the 'I AM' or 'Yahweh' would be taken to be Chokhmah's name.

ARJ: Chokhmah told Abishua the next line (and first imperative) said 'SERVE NO OTHER GODS' and in the future this would seem strange to the children of Israel after they came to believe Yahweh was the only God in existence, and there were no other gods to serve in any event.

ARK: The next imperative was 'COUNTENANCE NO INJUSTICE' and this led to the rise of courts and judges to settle disputes within and between the twelve tribes and to punish wrongdoers. There flourished among the people a deep reluctance to testify falsely or to break solemn oaths.

ARL: The fourth row on the tablet said, 'CRAVE NOTHING OF ANOTHER' and struck at the impulse that led to theft or even adultery. This was followed by 'DO NOT IMITATE THE STRANGERS' WAYS' which prohibited everything from setting up idols to engaging in homosexual relations.

ARM: The sixth precept was Daat's contribution to the experiment. It said, 'DO NOT CONSUME BLOOD' and there was no objective reason for this to be included. It was a capricious whim introduced merely to test the willingness of the human participants to adhere to the covenant.

ARN: Two line items proscribing the ingestion of pork and shellfish were from Chokhmah, who thought they might prevent food-borne ailments. When archaeologists dug up sites in Canaan thousands of years later the Israelite towns were the ones entirely missing remains of pigs.

ARO: Keter's favorite one was there too, commanding the males among the Israelites to be circumcised. He threw it in there to sabotage the whole operation, but they did it anyway, even unto the third generation as Daat confirmed, and there was ample evidence they still did so.

ARP: The final imperative written on the tablet was to observe the annual day of atonement, and this represented the sole opportunity Chokhmah had, according to the original conditions of the long experiment, to have direct contact with the people through the high priest.

ARQ: As far as Chokhmah was concerned the experiment was essentially over. Keter could no longer call for the destruction of the human race on the grounds of disobedience. In this way Chokhmah's promise to Abraham that 'all the Earth shall find blessing in you' was fulfilled.

AWA: By conversing with the high priest and shaping facts on the ground Chokhmah was able to gradually increase their influence until, culminating in Eli, they became judges over the whole confederation of tribes. But contact was limited to a yearly basis and hence inflexible.

AWB: What Chokhmah wanted was a prophet, but not like Zadkiel, who had gotten hyz marching orders while groveling at the feet of Keter. What she did instead was use a small fold-door to leave a gadget the size of a grain of rice inside the head of a young man named Samuel.

AWC: Then she would tell Samuel to go around saying things like on a certain day at such-and-such a valley the Philistines would be swallowed by the Earth, and sure enough, a sinkhole would open under the feet of a company of Philistines, making them easy pickings for archers.

AWD: On occasion, very rarely since Chokhmah was not nearly as cruel as Keter, the Philistines would be the victims of Divine Fire. More frequently, she would relay to Israelite army commanders, through Samael, intelligence on enemy movements. By degrees Canaan fell in line.

AWE: Chokhmah communicated to Samuel that the religious function of the meeting tent, or tabernacle, should be transferred to a permanent structure to fulfill her original promise of making Canaan the permanent home of the children of Israel. She chose the city of Jerusalem.

AWF: It took twenty years to build the temple and Samuel did not live to see its completion. But when it was finished the chieftain of the Judahites, Rehoboam, thought it lent a sufficiently beautiful and glorious ambiance to Jerusalem that he declared himself to be a king.

AWG: Not to be outdone, Jeroboam of the Ephraimites put on kingly robes himself. He built up his capital first at Shechem in the saddle between Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal, but them moved his court to Penuel east of the Jordan River where Jacob once fought Israel to a draw.

AWH: To prevent the people from going down to the new temple in Jerusalem to worship there, Jeroboam set up a golden calf at Bethel and told everyone it was God Most High all along, and the feast days for the golden calf were timed to coincide with the feast days in Jerusalem.

AWI: Nadab succeeded Jeroboam upon his father's death and reigned as king for two years before falling prey to a plot among the officers within his own army. He was slain by Captain Baasha of the tribe of Issachar, who made himself king and waged war against Judah continually.

AWJ: Baasha was succeeded by his son Elah, but Elah drank to excess and was slain by General Zimri, who commanded half of his charioteers. Then Zimri destroyed the whole house of Baasha, leaving no male heir alive. He ascended to the throne himself in yet another palace coup.

AWK: But when news spread that Zimri had set himself up as king in Elah's stead, the army proclaimed General Omri as the true king of Samaria and marched from Gibbethon to lay siege to Tirzah for a week. Zimri let the palace burn around himself rather than be captured alive.

AWL: But the Israelites of the northern territories outside of the two tribes of Joseph held forth that Tibni was their king rather than this Omri. Civil war raged four years until Tibni was slain, but following this bloodshed was a long peace even with Tyre and the Judahites.

AWM: King Omri was strong enough to make Samaria the greatest power between the Nile and Euphrates rivers during the time of turmoil when the Bronze Age made an uneasy transition to the Iron Age. Omri ruled for twelve years and when he died he left the kingdom to his son Ahab.

AWN: Early in his reign Ahab forged an alliance with the Phoenicians by gaining the hand of Princess Jezebel in marriage. Her father was both king of Tyre and a priest of the fertility goddess Astarte. Jezebel herself had been trained to attend to Baal, the consort of Astarte.

AWO: The rot started small. Queen Jezebel needed a shrine to keep up her Baal priestess certification so Ahab caused one to be made for her in the city of Samaria. But Baal looked so lonely there all by himself, not moving an inch. He needed a shrine for his wife Astarte too.

AWP: By slow degrees the Phoenician shrines multiplied in Samaria, and with them their attendant priests and priestesses. There was a new prosperity that came with the alliance and the people grew willing to accept the religious encroachments of their glamorous new queen.

AWQ: When King Jeroboam first set up an image of a golden calf at Bethel and told his subjects it was El Elyon, or God Most High, there wasn't much Chokhmah could say about it. A ban on making images wasn't part of the original Abrahamic covenant and even the ark had sphinxes.

AWR: But bringing over from Tyre the priests and idols of pre-existing gods was too much for Chokhmah to stomach. And a man named Elijah thought so too. He made it a hobby to get in the king's face about the issue and constantly reminded His Majesty that his God was Yahweh.

AWS: At last Queen Jezebel got tired of the insolence of this Elijah and convinced her husband to bring matters to a head with a public demonstration. Two altars were prepared with slain bulls. The first priest who could get his god to magically light a bull on fire wins.

AWT: Jezebel, who considered religion as a political tool, thought it was much more likely that neither god would actually strike fire, in which case the arrangement was for Elijah to speak no more to the king of Yahweh and allow the people to choose which would be their god.

AWU: When Baal seemed to be taking his own sweet time setting his bull aflame his chief priest called in forty reinforcements to wail and plead and rip their garments and pluck hairs from their heads and beards. Elijah called for jugs of water and completely dowsed his bull.

AWV: Then it was show time. Chokhmah opened a tiny fold-door inside her bull and allowed a small burst of hot plasma from the upper layers of her stellar body to slip across. It was enough to kindle the fat in the bull and get it burning despite being entirely soaked in water.

AWW: There is nothing like a spectacular public miracle to renew a people's loyalty to their god. The spirit of the crowd was such that Elijah was able to incite them to deadly violence against the priests of Baal standing there, although Chokhmah never asked him to do it.

AWX: Neither was Chokhmah able to much influence the ebb and flow of Levantine geopolitics. Two major defeats at the hands of Aramean kings brought Samaria under a foreign yoke, only to be reversed when Damascus was defeated in turn by the resurgent Assyrians of Mesopotamia.

AWY: During the forty-one year reign of King Jeroboam II Samaria attained the greatest prosperity it had ever known. The population grew to 350,000 people. They worshiped the golden calves at Bethel and Dan but at least they paid lip-service and called them images of Yahweh.

AWZ: But a massive earthquake that killed many thousands of people seemed to herald a decline in the fortune of Samaria that was concurrent with the rise of the Assyrians into the first true empire the world had ever seen and the model for all empires which would follow.

AXA: By order of the Assyrian king the people of the tribes of Dan, Asher, Naphtali, Zebulun, Issachar, Gad, Reuben, and half of Manasseh were relocated to lands far to the east. The planning for the move took longer than the actual transfer and the logistics were flawless.

AXB: No one was marched east at the business end of a whip, and many even went willingly. The Israelites were a remarkably literate people, and there were positions to be had in the Assyrian civil service. But they were relocated according to a plan that disturbed Chokhmah.

AXC: The exiles were assigned plots in locations chosen such that when it was time for their children to find mates it was easier for them to run across one of the locals rather than their fellow exiles. No one was compelled to intermarry, but the end result was the same.

AXD: Twelve years later Sargon II completed the conquest of Samaria. The remaining people of Manesseh and all of Ephraim were exiled to Medea. The northern kingdom had entirely ceased to exist, leaving only the tribes of Simeon, Benjamin, Judah, and some Levites in the south.

BDA: Chokhmah understood the logic of the Assyrian policy of relocation from their point of view. It was an effective way of dealing with nationalism. But she had told Abraham a large nation would spring from his loins and she would not be held faithless in her Covenant with him.

BDB: So Chokhmah exercised her option to bring colonists to Heaven. It was an arrangement she had hammered out with Keter when the father of the Israelites was yet living in the household of his own father, Yishak. They were constrained to settle Haaretz west of the Wall of God.

BDC: The price of the arrangement was that every 'agent' (Keter's word) that Chokhmah brought to Heaven could be matched by one of his own brought to the worlds circling her at a time of his choosing. But Chokmah, in turn, insisted they must only settle in the outer solar system.

BDD: Chokhmah sent angels to choose righteous families from among the tribe of Ephraim. They built the city of Hadal far in the northeast of Haaretz, in a cool vale between Shaula Wood and the very face of the Wall of God. Hadal became the leading city in the kingdom of Nath.

BDE: The Levites were forbidden by Father Yakob to ever own land in a tradition that had been heartily affirmed by the other tribes, but this was set aside in Heaven since the colonists did not possess the Ark of the Covenant and the priestly ministry that went along with it.

BDF: So the tribe of Levi founded Adjara on the western edge of the Shaula Wood. It became a great crossroads in the land and the center of a weapons craft that rivaled that of the Black Beards. In time the heavenly Temple of Yahweh would be constructed in the heart of the city.

BDG: The Reubenites built Mizal near Mount Narutha but the lee of the uplands was dry and impoverished. Ever they struck north against the Red Beards of Linan for the rich fruit of the orchards round about that city, and stole much cattle. At length the newcomers prevailed.

BDH: The tribe of Gad founded their city of Kabark on a plain that also lacked for water. So they built a mighty dam of cunning stonework across the river Armak and dug many canals and ditches fanning from the resulting lake to water lush farms that became the envy of Haaretz.

BDI: The tribe of Dan built the city of Fatho at the foot of the Wall of God where many natural caves lay. The Danites delved deep with pick and spade to reap precious stones and much gold.

And these five tribes comprised the Kingdom of Nath in the north and east of Haaretz.

BDJ: The colonists Chokhmah transplanted from among the tribe of Issachar were settled in the Nyduly forest. This wood stretched along the southern bank of the river Sabik. The people grew skilled in felling and shaping timber, and they excelled in all manner of woodcraft.

BDK: The tribe of Zebulun settled far up the vale of the Nanki on the road between the Saiph League and the kingdom of Nath. There caravans transferred their goods to rafts fashioned from logs felled from the endless forests of pine blanketing the foothills of the Wall of God.

BDL: At the midpoint of its long course the river Nanki tumbled over a series of cataracts that would dash any cargo-carrying rafts to splinters. Here the tribe of Asher portaged the goods to new rafts made from the same logs sent individually down sluices to below the falls.

BDM: Descendants of Naphtali built Wazol at the very source of the river Sabik, and 19,000 vertical feet of the stone Wall of God fairly loomed over it. Here the Catwalk of legend touched bottom. The mines of Wazol offered much iron ore, and well as the coal used to smelt it.

BDN: Refugees taken from the tribe of Manessah built Menkant in the valley of the upper Sabik between Mount Rasal and Mount Menkant. Their settlement grew to become the leading city among the five tribes in the south of Haaretz. In time these became the kingdom of Hamar.

BDO: When Jezebel, daughter of King of Tyre and wife of King Ahab, brought priests of Baal into Samaria, none of these priests were allowed to enter Judah during the whole thirty-five reign of King Jeshoshaphat. He also set up a court of appeals in Jerusalem to watch over judges.

BDP: Jehoram was thirty-two years of age when he became king of Judah, and he reigned for eight years in Jerusalem. Athaliah, the daughter of King Ahab of Samaria, became his wife. During the reign of Jehoram, Edom, a vassal province of Judah, revolted and named their own king.

BDQ: After the death of her son, Athaliah the mother of Ahaziah, had the entire royal line murdered except Joash, who was an infant spirited away by Jehosheba the sister of Ahaziah. For six years Joash remained hidden in the temple of Yahweh while Athaliah ruled Judah.

BDR: Athaliah introduced the worship of Baal to Judah but she was killed seven years later in a coup orchestrated by the high priest Jehoiada, the husband of Jeho-Sheba. Then Joash, who was only seven years of age, was proclaimed king of Judah in 837 BCE.

BDR: Uzziah ascended to the throne of Judah when he was sixteen years of age. He restored Jerusalem to its earlier glory and built up many new orchards and farms across the land. And Uzziah reconquered territory in the Negev desert region long lost to the house of Judah.

BDS: Uzziah also regained control of Edom. But near the end of his life Uzziah became a leper and retired to a house apart from the palace while his son Jotham ruled Judah as a coregent. But Jotham was deposed by a faction that favored his son Ahaz, who was twenty years of age.

BDT: Ahaz reigned while Samaria was slowly dismantled by Sargon II. The capital city of Jerusalem survived a combined siege by the Arameans and a Samaria in vassalage. Simultaneously, however, the Edomites conquered the Red Sea town of Elath and drove the Judeans out of it.

BDU: Ahaz then paid the Assyrians to attack the Arameans. The Assyrians seized Damascus and put King Rezin to death. King Ahaz caused a copy of the pagan altar of bronze oxen he had seen in occupied Damascus to be constructed in Jerusalem, thus reintroducing polytheism to Judah.

BDV: King Hezekiah was twenty-five years old when he began to reign. He removed every vestige of polytheism in Judah, removing the bronze idols of Ahaz, and even tore down the high places, the hilltop shrines to Canaanite gods, that had existed under every king since Rehoboam.

BDW: Hezekiah refused to serve the Assyrian king Sennacherib the son of Sargon II who conquered Samaria. Sennacherib therefore laid siege to Jerusalem and forced Hezekiah to pay a tribute of thirty talents of gold, eight hundred talents of silver, gems, antimony, and many jewels.

BDX: Also sent to King Sennacherib in Nineveh was carnelian, couches and chairs inlaid with ivory, elephant hides and tusks, ebony, boxwood, and other rich treasures, along with all of King Hezekiah's daughters, his wives, his musicians, and many servants, both men and women.

BDY: A chastened King Hezekiah constructed a underground aqueduct to bring fresh water to the Pool of Siloam inside the city as preparation against a future siege. Chokhmah chose the pool to be the normal point of entry when she brought servants on errands from Heaven to Earth.

BDZ: When the Egyptian Pharaoh Neco led his army toward the River Euphrates to link up with the Assyrian Empire, King Josiah went out to confront him, but he was slain on the plains of Megiddo. Josiah's son Jehoahaz succeeded him, but he reigned only three months in Jerusalem.

BEA: The Pharaoh took him captive at Riblah in the land of Hamath and demanded from Judah a tribute of much silver and gold. King Jehoahaz died in captivity in Egypt, the first king of Judah to die in exile. Neco then appointed Eliakim, another son of Josiah, as king of Judah.

BEB: Eliakim changed his name to Jehoiakim. After his defeat at the hands of the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II and serving as his vassal for three years, King Jehoiakim revolted against Babylon. But he died before the armies of his Levantine allies could reach Jerusalem.

BEC: At this time Chokhmah withdrew the Ark of the Covenant from the temple in Jerusalem lest it fell into the hands of the Babylonians. A fellow named Jeremiah made a name for himself stating the obvious thing Chokhmah had seen, that Jerusalem was about to come under attack.