On the first day of the Dedication festival, the two were standing together in the Court of the Women. The priests, who were making a circuit of the whole building, sprinkling everywhere the blood of purification, came in due course to the spot. As they performed their office a drop fell upon the garment of Huldah, who had been joining in the prayers with an earnestness almost frenzied. The effect was marvellous. In a moment the excitement passed away. Her eyes lost their wandering look, and, in a tone calmer and more collected than any that she had ever before been known to use since the time of her trouble, she said, showing the crimson spot to Eglah—“He has heard my prayer; He has sprinkled me with the blood of cleansing.” She stood silent and collected until the whole ritual was finished, and when the time for the hymn of thanksgiving came round joined her voice with a quiet happiness to the voices of the congregation.
When the people returned to their homes Huldah left the Temple in company with Eglah. But it was evident that her strength was exhausted. She could barely totter along with all the help that Eglah and a neighbour could give her, and when she came to the house of Seraiah and Ruth, which happened [pg 262]to lie in her way, she sank almost unconscious to the ground. Providentially at that moment Ruth came up with her husband and the little Daniel.
“She seemed so much better in the Temple—was quite calm and peaceful again—and now I am afraid that she is going to be very ill,” said Eglah.
Woman’s wit suggested to Ruth a happy thought for dealing with the sufferer.
“Leave her to me,” she said. “She was happy here once, and here, if it please the Lord, she will be happy again.”
Ruth and her husband carried her into the house, and laid her upon her bed in her old chamber. Once there she was able to swallow a little broth which had been hastily prepared, cast one grateful look of recognition at her old mistress, and then fell into a deep sleep. The next morning she awoke, entirely restored to reason, and, though still somewhat weak, able to go about the household tasks in which she had been once employed, and which she resumed at once without a question, and as if, indeed, they had never been interrupted for a day. The three years of misery were entirely blotted out of her memory; nor did any spectre from the past ever come back to trouble her.
CHAPTER XXII.
WARS AND RUMOURS OF WARS.
The Feast of Dedication having been kept and made an ordinance in Israel for ever,[19] Judas’s next act was to fortify the restored Temple. It was exposed, even more than the rest of the city, to a sudden attack from the garrison of the fort, which might work irreparable mischief could it gain, even for an hour, possession of the sacred building. Accordingly a high wall, strengthened at intervals by towers, was now erected round it, and a force was told off from the army to watch it. This done, the patriot leader could attend without anxiety to other cares. At Beth-zur a fortress was erected and strongly garrisoned to guard the Eastern frontier especially against the attacks of the Idumeans, who, under their new name, inherited all the old Edomite jealousy of Israel. After personally superintending [pg 264]the erection of this stronghold, Judas marched against other tribes on the east and south, who had been taking advantage of the troublous times to plunder their Jewish neighbours. The Arabs of the Negeb, or South Country, were defeated at a pass near the Dead Sea, which bore the appropriate name of the Pass of the Scorpions; the Ammonites, another tribe whose kinship with the chosen people seems to have embittered their hereditary enmity, were defeated under their Greek leader, Timotheus.