5C

5C

Rosh read all the words of his father aloud to the Remnant, then he said, "I will add an account of last night's battle at the foot of the Wall of God and of the death of our father at the hand of enemies who would steal the Ark. We will fulfill the charge laid upon him."

Elam pondered this silently for a time, then he said to his younger brother, "God favors you to be the High Priest, that is plain, and so the oracles of God shall be committed to you. But think you strangers will never again attempt to take from us the Ark of the Covenant?"

Rosh shook his head. "No, Elam, they will return, and I know of a certainty that you are the most warlike of Father Lael's sons. But when this yoke was laid upon our father it was the will of God that the office of both priest and judge should be in the grasp of one man."

"Let it never be said that I doubt our Lord God," replied Elam, "yet recall how this visitor Jashen took the Killing Relic from the hands of our father Lael. Had he not done this, mayhaps our father would be alive today."

Rosh thought to rebuke his brother for his words of faithlessness, yet wisdom prevailed and Rosh knew Elam spoke only from his grief. He said, "I perceive that God Most High is wise, and employs his servants according to the temperament they each have rather than fits them uneasily to an unbending will. So let the offices of priest and judge now be carried out by two sons of Lael according to our skills. I will set my foot on the path marked out by the oracle of God, spoken or otherwise, but in all other things, beloved brother, I shall obey as though you were our father."

Then Rosh set the White Scroll of Leliel within its clay pot and set the pot within the Ark of the Covenant. When he set the cover upon the Ark to conceal them Yahweh did not strike him dead. Therefore Elam was persuaded that Bat-El had accepted the division of the offices of priest and judge proposed by Rosh.

When the days of mourning for the High Priest Lael of the Levites had passed, Lael's third son Rosh took he the Table of the Covenant and held it forth in front of him. Then turned he in a slow circle until a sound like that of a shofar trumpet came forth from the relic. And Lael's third son Rosh said, "Behold, I am constrained to go there." And Elam, the chieftain of the Remnant, was compelled to follow his younger brother that he might be true to his word.