When Jesus Wept - By Bodie Page 0,54
was as if the sun had risen and then immediately retreated below the eastern horizon.
Already the thorn hedges around my home and the jasmine vines twined around the pillars of my porch were covered in locusts. While my ears continued to be assaulted by the hum of wings, the din was increased by a new raucous sound: chewing.
The pitch pots were fully ablaze. Swirling plumes of black vapor rose to bar entry into my choicest vines. It was working! As the horde of hoppers flew toward the fields and confronted the fumes, they diverted to either side.
It sickened me to see how quickly they destroyed the first row of unprotected fig trees. Settling on the branches like a myriad of tiny pruning hooks, they changed summer’s lush growth to wintry barrenness.
In order to save the Faithful Vineyard, other parts would have to be sacrificed. Nor would protecting even a remnant be easy.
The grasshoppers were a crafty foe. Like an enemy force unable to advance by one route seeks another, so too did the grasshoppers. They could not fly through the foul reek of the blazing tar, so they landed in front of my defenses.
The battle to save Faithful Vineyard began in earnest.
I shouted, having to cup my hands around my mouth and turn downwind to keep from inhaling a mouthful of pests, “Drive them! Drive them!”
Each of my seventy-two laborers was assigned a row of vines. With an empty grain sack in each hand, a man charged in, flailing on both sides.
The grasshoppers launched themselves into the air where the strengthening breeze caught and propelled them toward the opposite end of the planting.
Some flew directly into the sail-like rigs of palm fronds coated with pitch and were trapped there. Others rose on the wind and disappeared into the distance. The plan was succeeding but required unrelenting effort. Each of my human warriors moved ahead, holding the enemy at bay.
“We need more workers!” I urged Samson. “We must send a second wave to follow the first. Go to the market square and hire more.”
“How much shall we offer them?”
“Still a denarius, if they will come now. Go!”
I soon regretted not eating breakfast at my sister’s urging. There was no chance for even a bite of bread.
A water container with the lid left barely ajar was soon filled to the brim with drowned hoppers or those staying alive on the backs of their fallen comrades.
And still more of them came.
The pitch-covered traps worked so well they sagged beneath the weight of the captured locusts.
I ordered Samson, “We’ve got to replace those screens immediately, and we must send a third wave of men with sacks to keep driving.”
The wail of a woman shrieking came from my home. I ran to investigate.
Martha answered my pounding summons by dragging me quickly into the front hall. She slammed the door again before no more than half a hundred grasshoppers entered with me.
“What’s happened?” I demanded.
“Don’t worry,” my stalwart sister returned. “Someone failed to latch the shutters properly to your office. I sent her in there to fetch something, and when she opened the door … I’m sorry, but there’s a regular Pharaoh’s army crawling on ceiling, walls, and floors. It scared her, but I got the door shut tight now so they can’t reach the rest of the house.”
“But my papers? My manuscripts? They’ll be devoured!” Then I bowed my head and laughed at my own foolishness. “Perhaps they’ll eat the bills. After today there may not be any way to pay them!”
“I’m sorry, brother.”
“Never mind. I’d happily give them my office to save the vines.”
“How is it going up there?”
“Holding our own. At least, I hope so.”
A cry of “More tar! More tar, here! The smudge pots are going out!”
Racing back out, I heard Martha jam the portal shut behind me.
As the orchards of Herod Antipas were consumed, still we held the perimeter of Faithful Vineyard. I had hoped that as the sun set and the day came to an end, so would the horror of the plague, but it did not let up.
The later quantity of tar we purchased was more volatile than the first. Instead of merely smoldering, sheets of flame shot upward as the pots were ignited. Blazing tongues of fire licked each column of smoke. Locusts blundering into them became squirming, burning embers tossing on the breeze.
It was a scene straight from a prophet’s vision of Gehenna. Sheets of flame briefly illuminated flapping apparitions of men keeping locusts from landing. Workers