At sunset exactly—for Judas was one of the commanders who are exactly and punctually obeyed—the two expeditions set forth.
Their departure was, of course, observed by the garrison of the fort, who were encouraged by it to make some fierce sallies on the diminished forces of the patriots. These were as fiercely repelled, and in a few days things settled down again into the virtual truce which had existed for some time between besiegers and besieged.
Eight days after the departure of the expeditions tidings of victory came from the main army under Judas. The captain of the host had taken Bozrah, in Edom. The place lay at least a hundred miles to the east; but the patriots had covered the distance with unexpected rapidity, and, reaching the place before there had been any notion of their approach, had taken it almost without resistance. The messenger had left, he said, as soon as the place was taken, but Judas had marched the same night to Dametha, which was in urgent need of relief.
The next day came in tidings of further success. Dametha and its garrison, with the crowd of helpless fugitives which had sought shelter within its walls, was safe. The night march from Bozrah had been made just in time. Had it been delayed till morning it might well have been too late. The Ammonites had chosen that very day for a fierce assault upon the place. Just as the day was dawning and the assailants were close under the walls Judas had appeared. His approach had been observed by the besieged, who had watched it from the citadel, but the assailants were taken by surprise. Hemmed in between two attacking forces, the garrison who made a sortie from the town and the army of the patriots in the rear, they had been utterly routed. Timotheus had barely escaped with his life, and had fled northward, followed by Judas in hot pursuit. A few days afterwards came the news that the campaign was at an end—begun and finished within the space of two weeks. This time the captain had found time to write a despatch. It ran thus:—
“Judas, Captain of the Lord’s host, to Azariah, greeting. Know that the Lord has delivered the enemy into our hands. Timotheus, having suffered defeat at Dametha, fled northward to a temple where the heathen worship the ‘Two-horned Ashtaroth,’ a strong place by nature and skilfully fortified. I judged it better that I should not spill the blood of [pg 270]the people of the Lord in assaulting it, and so, having cleared the walls of defenders by help of my slingers, I surrounded it with great quantities of faggots. To these I caused fire to be set, nor did my slingers suffer the Ammonites to approach to put out the flames. In the end the whole was consumed, and Timotheus perished in the fire. The Lord has rewarded him according to his deeds. So much for what has been done: now for what remains to do. This country is not as yet a safe dwelling-place, and will not be till the heathen shall be more thoroughly subdued. It is my purpose, therefore, to bring the people of this land to Jerusalem. Provide, to the best of your ability, for their food and lodging. Farewell!”
The exultation felt by the people at Jerusalem when the tidings of their final victory reached them passes description. The times of David, they were sure, were about to return. The promise was once again to be fulfilled—“He shall reign from the flood [the Euphrates], unto the world’s end.” In the Temple chant of the day the words went—“I will not be afraid of ten thousands of the people that have set themselves against me round about. Up, Lord, and help me, O my God, for Thou smitest all Thine enemies upon the cheek-bone. Thou hast broken the teeth of the ungodly.”
But when tidings of still further victories, won by Simon in Galilee, came in to swell the popular [pg 271]enthusiasm, there was a certain change of feeling, something of the jealousy that almost inevitably springs up when great deeds are done. Joseph and Azariah chafed at the life of inaction which they were forced to live at Jerusalem, and what they thought in their hearts the soldiers did not hesitate to express openly. “Let us also,” so ran the common talk—“let us also get for ourselves a name, and go and fight against the enemies of the Lord.”
On the day after the tidings of Simon’s victories came in the two captains were waited upon by a deputation of soldiers, who came to urge that they might be relieved from the inaction to which they were condemned, an inaction made all the more hard to bear by the glories that were being won elsewhere. Azariah and Joseph listened with attention, and, indeed, were at no pains to hide their sympathy.
“The men are right,” said Joseph, when the deputation had withdrawn. “They will lose all heart if we keep them idling here.”
“In my heart I am inclined to agree with you,” answered his colleague; “but what did the captain say?—‘Watch the garrison of the heathen that they do no hurt to the city and the Holy Place while we are away.’ But he said nothing of going elsewhere, and I should be unwilling to disobey him, for, beyond all doubt, the Lord is with him.”